Apollonius Rhodius, Herodotus and Historiography 1108492320, 9781108492324

This book examines the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes through one aspect of its relationship with other texts. The

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Apollonius Rhodius, Herodotus and Historiography
 1108492320, 9781108492324

Table of contents :
FM......Page 1
Contents......Page 5
Preface......Page 7
Abbreviations......Page 9
Introduction......Page 11
Receiving Herodotus......Page 37
Creating Authorities......Page 52
Explaining the Past......Page 106
Telling Stories......Page 134
Greeks and Non-Greeks......Page 155
Kings and Leaders......Page 189
Conclusions and Consequences......Page 219
Select Bibliography......Page 228
Index of Subjects......Page 243
Index of Passages......Page 249

Citation preview

APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, HERODOTUS AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

This book examines the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes through one aspect of its relationship with other texts. The particular intertextual relationship examined is that with the Histories of Herodotus, focusing on the presence of the latter text in the former in terms of the poem’s employment of characteristics and features of historiographical discourse, narrative structures, presentation and description of characters, aetiology and patterns of explanation, por trayal of ethnic groups, and depiction of kingship and tyranny; the relationship between particular passages in both texts is also explored. The consequences for the interpretation of the poem are profound: the Argonautica employs Herodotean historiography as a key intertext in order to manipulate and frustrate readers’ generic expectations for an epic poem and to complicate the relationship between the con temporary Hellenistic Mediterranean (and its kingdoms) and the distant mythological Argonautic past. . .  is Professor of Greek at the University of Manchester. He is the author of The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, ) and Performances and Audiences in Pindar’s Sicilian Victory Odes () and co editor of Ancient Letters () and Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (). He is currently working on a commentary on selected poems of Callimachus for the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series and a New Survey on Hellenistic poetry for Greece & Rome and is co directing the AHRC project on Ancient Letter Collections ( ).

APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, HERODOTUS AND HISTORIOGRAPHY A. D. MORRISON University of Manchester

University Printing House, Cambridge  , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York,  , USA  Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India  Anson Road, #–/, Singapore  Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © A. D. Morrison  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published  Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Morrison, A. D., author. : Apollonius Rhodius, Herodotus and historiography / A. D. Morrison. : New York : Cambridge University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. :   (print) |   (ebook) |   (hardback) |   (paperback) |   (epub) : : Apollonius, Rhodius. Argonautica. | Herodotus. | Greece–Historiography. :  .   (print) |  . (ebook) |  /.–dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/  ---- Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Preface Abbreviations

page ix xi

Introduction





Receiving Herodotus





Creating Authorities





Explaining the Past





Telling Stories





Greeks and Non-Greeks





Kings and Leaders



Conclusions and Consequences



Select Bibliography Index of Subjects Index of Passages

  

vii

Preface

This is a book about Hellenistic poetry. In particular it examines one Hellenistic poem, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, through one aspect of A.R.’s relationship with other texts, the study of which relationship has been the focus of much of the flowering of Hellenistic literary studies in the last thirty years. Accordingly it employs the dominant mode of reading Hellenistic (and Latin) poetry, viz. the intertextual mode of reading. The particular intertextual relationship examined is that between the Argonautica and the Histories of Herodotus, focusing on the presence of the latter text in the former in terms of the poem’s employment of characteristics and features of historiographical discourse, narrative structures, presentation and description of characters, aetiology and patterns of explanation, portrayal of ethnic groups, and depiction of kingship and tyranny; the relationship between particular passages in both texts is also explored. The use of historiography as part of the Argonautica’s articulation of its relationship to and difference from the Homeric epics is highlighted. The consequences for the interpretation of the poem are profound: the Argonautica employs Herodotean historiography as a key intertext in order to manipulate and frustrate readers’ generic expectations for an epic poem and to complicate the relationship between the contemporary Hellenistic Mediterranean (and its kingdoms) and the distant mythological Argonautic past. This book is not a reconstruction of Apollonius’ ‘sources’, nor is it a comprehensive survey of his use of all historical texts (in prose or verse), though other historiographical texts (esp. Xenophon’s Anabasis) will be discussed where relevant to the argument of the book. The book focuses on some fundamental aspects of Apollonius’ engagement with historiographical discourse and the text of one particular historian, whose position in the development of the genre of historiography makes him the most important example of the genre from Apollonius’ perspective. ix

x

Preface

I have a number of people to thank for their help in the writing of this book. It began to take shape during seven months’ leave in Oxford, during which I was welcomed back to my old college, Queen’s, to which I am very grateful, especially to Angus Bowie, who first made me think seriously about Herodotus. The wider Faculty of Classics also made me feel very welcome, and I thank in particular Felix Budelmann, Bruno Currie, Adrian Kelly and Matthew Robinson. I am also grateful to Jessica Priestley and Alan Griffiths for letting me read their work before publication, to Alison Sharrock and Emily Baragwanath for their many insightful comments on earlier drafts, and to Roy Gibson for his wise help and advice. Likewise I should thank the readers for the Press, who have immeasurably improved the book through many excellent suggestions: it would have been a lesser and very different book but for their input. I am particularly grateful to Michael Sharp, whose enthusiasm and commitment have been absolutely indispensable throughout the process of publication, and to the staff at Cambridge University Press who have overseen the production process so carefully and efficiently, especially my copy editor, Lesley Hay. Audiences in Leeds, Cambridge and Manchester heard versions of parts of the book and gave me much food for thought, for which I should also like to express my thanks. In Manchester I am grateful to my colleagues in the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology, especially for accommodating the periods of research leave during which I worked on the book; the work on Apollonius of my new colleague Tom Phillips, however, only came to my attention once this book had reached its final form. I am also very grateful to three Manchester PhD students of mine (two recent and one current), all working on Hellenistic poetry (in different ways): Tim Kenny, Kat Molesworth and Kat Mawford. I have learnt an enormous amount from reading their work. This book is dedicated to my younger son and my mother (his favourite person; we both owe her a lifetime of thanks); I first began thinking about ‘Clio and Calliope’ when my wife Gioia was pregnant with Robert. It is impossible to express sufficient thanks (for everything) to Gioia.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations of Greek authors and texts follow Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Stuart Jones, H., Mackenzie, R. (eds.), A Greek–English Lexicon (th edition, with a revised supplement, Oxford, ); abbreviations of Latin authors and texts follow Lewis, C. T., Short, C. (eds.), A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, ); abbreviations of journals follow L’Année Philologique. The following list may also be helpful. AB Adler BNJ CA DK FGrH Harder Hense MP Pack Pf. PMGF

Austin, C., Bastianini, G. (eds.), Posidippi Pellaei Quae Supersunt Omnia (Milan, ) Adler, A. (ed.), Suidae lexicon (Stuttgart, –) Worthington, I. (General Editor), Brill’s New Jacoby, revised and enlarged version of FGrH, Brill Online, https:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/brill-s-new-jacoby Powell, J. U. (ed.), Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford, ) Diels. H., Kranz. W. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, th edition (Berlin, ) Jacoby, F. (ed.), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin, –, Leiden, –) Harder  (see Select Bibliography) Hense, O., C. Musonii Rufi Reliquiae (Leipzig, ) Mertens, P., Pack, R. A., revised and updated version of Pack, online at http://cipl.philo.ulg.ac.be/Cedopal/MP/ dbsearch en.aspx Pack, R. A., The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from GraecoRoman Egypt, nd edition (Michigan, ) Pfeiffer – (see Select Bibliography) Davies, M. (ed.), Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Oxford, )

xi

xii SH SSH

Abbreviations Lloyd-Jones, H., Parsons, P. (eds.), Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin and New York, ) Lloyd-Jones, H., Supplementum Supplementi Hellenistici (Berlin and New York, )

Introduction

Apollonius and Herodotus In fragment  of Pfeiffer’s edition of the Aetia (fr.  M.), Callimachus has the Muse Clio rest her hand on the shoulder of her sister as she begins to speak for the second time, in answer to one of his questions. The sister is unnamed, but it is tempting to think of this as Calliope, who probably spoke second of the Muses in the Aetia, and was often characterised as the ‘senior Muse’ in ancient texts. This vignette hints at the close relationship between epic and historiography, the investigation of which is the subject of this book. This closeness has, of course, long been recognised: Herodotus himself was characterised as Ὁμηρικώτατος (‘most Homeric’) by [Longinus] (de subl. .), and modern scholarship has explored at length the Homeric affinities of Herodotean historiography so that the roots of historiography in epic are as clear to us as they were for Archelaus of Priene in his Apotheosis of Homer, who depicts History among those sacrificing before the divine Homer, or for the makers of the ‘Salmacis inscription’





  



ὣς ἐφάμην· Κλειὼ δὲ τ ̣ὸ ̣ [δ]εύτερ̣ ον ̣ ἤρχ[ετο μ]ύθ ̣[ου |χεῖρ’ ἐπ’ ἀδελφειῆς ὦμον ̣ἐρεισαμένη·(vv. –) (‘So I spoke. And Clio for the second time began her account, supporting her hand on her sister’s shoulder’). Clio and Calliope are also the first and last named Muses in Hesiod’s catalogue of Muses in the Theogony (–), both in line-initial position in vv.  and  respectively, and are the names traditionally attached to the first and last of the books of Herodotus. She speaks early in the poem at fr. .ff. Pf./.ff. M. E.g. in Plato’s Phaedrus (d) as well as Hesiod’s Theogony (v. ). Although we do not know exactly when the Muses received their precise, specialised domains such as the ‘Muse of History’, the process was clearly already underway in the Hellenistic period, and their domains are firmly established by the imperial period: see Murray , , , Morrison . Cf. e.g. Asheri et al. : –, Pelling  and Griffiths :  for various narrative, structural and thematic aspects of Herodotus’ ‘multi-threaded’ text as deriving from the Homeric poems, Marincola : – on Herodotus’ persona as resembling the Homeric Odysseus. Rutherford  compares the use of Homer by Herodotus and Thucydides.





Introduction

which commemorated Herodotus as the ‘Prose Homer of History’. The great majority, however, of work on the relationship of historiography and epic has concerned how the former adapts the latter, especially (of course) Homer. Less attention has been paid to investigating systematically the degree to which Greek epic after Homer responds to and makes use of the historiography which itself developed and modified various aspects of Homeric epic. There are, however, good reasons for thinking that historiography as a mode of discourse (its tropes, structures, means of characterising individuals, fields of interest), as well as the particular descriptions of places and peoples contained within particular texts, were exploited by Apollonius and other poets. Both epic and history are forms of long, complex narrative, often dealing with the same or similar locations, albeit from different perspectives and with different aims. Moreover, the two genres as found in Greek literature were able also to show some important overlap in subject matter and content, since there existed from the Archaic period onwards several examples of epics with a distinct historical dimension, such as the Corinthiaca of Eumelus, which connected historical peoples and places with mythic or historical forebears. With reference to the Argonautica in particular there have been important contributions outlining the use of individual episodes from historiography, including Herodotus (where the major commentators are particularly rich in significant parallels), as well as the investigation of 

 

 





The inscription (SGO //) was found on the harbour of modern Bodrum (Halicarnassus), dates from the second or early first century  (see Isager : –) and celebrates the achievements of Halicarnassus; Herodotus is the first named author (col. , lines –) in a list of the city’s native poets and writers. On the inscription and the wider association in the Hellenistic period between Herodotus and Homer see Priestley : –. The Apotheosis of Homer and Salmacis inscription are again instructive here. For the use of prose texts of various kinds (including history, e.g. that of Xenomedes about his home island of Ceos) in Callimachus’ Aetia see Hutchinson : –, Krevans , Harder : , –. Here again the character and purpose of long elegiac poems, different from other kinds of discourse, is no barrier to their employment by an elegiac poet. On which see West . A related phenomenon was the long genealogical or local elegiac poem in the Archaic period, such as Mimnermus’ Smyrneis and Panyassis’ Ionica (see further Bowie , , Dougherty ). Similar poems were popular in the Hellenistic period, e.g. the local epics of Rhianus, such as the Messeniaca, perhaps in part as a response to historiographical interest in local peoples and places. See pp. – on the differences between Hellenistic local epics and the Argonautica. For example, the use at A.R. .– (the first part of the Argo’s voyage) of Hdt. .– (the final stages of the journey of Xerxes’ fleet towards Artemisium), noted by Delage : , has been ably explored by Clauss : – and Priestley : – (see further pp. – below). Elsewhere, Apollonius makes important use of Xenophon’s Anabasis, as examined by (e.g.) Beye : –, Fantuzzi & Hunter : – and Clauss  (see further n.  below). Esp. Fränkel , Livrea , Vian , , , Hunter , . I have documented relevant instances in the footnotes.

Apollonius and Herodotus



some of the ways in which Apollonius adopts elements reminiscent of the genre of historiography more broadly. Such work demonstrates both the prima facie likelihood of a significant connection between epic and historiography in the case of the Argonautica, and the importance of giving this topic a sustained and systematic treatment. I suggest that Apollonius exploits the differences which exist between the modes of epic and history as a key part of the construction of his own epic in order to subvert various aspects of its epic character, including the way the past can connect to the present and the means by which the epic narrative is authorised. My approach remains one to the Argonautica is as a poem and should not be mistaken for an analysis of the poem as if it were history, or a hybrid of history and epic, though the relationship between epic and history is fundamental to the book. (It is, I argue, complex, much more so than a simple conception of them as different in function and purpose will allow). Rather, I argue, the Argonautica uses various features of the discourse and narrative patterns of the genre of historiography, but remains an epic poem. The focus of this book is principally the ways in which the Argonautica employs the characteristics and features of historiography as a mode of discourse: how the historian constructs his narrative, encompassing the structure of the narrative, the presentation of characters (including their motivation, psychology and ethnicity), the ways in which the historian’s narrative is authorised and authenticated, the nature of the historian’s explanations of events and their causes and origins. I examine Apollonius’ use and adaptation of such features of historiographical discourse in order  



Particularly important forerunners in the study of the presence of elements of historiographical discourse in Apollonius include Fränkel  and Dufner . See further pp. – below. Hellenistic poets have often been characterised as approaching earlier literary types or genres through a ‘crossing of genres’ (Kreuzung der Gattungen, see Kroll : –). But this notion is insufficient to describe the complexity of the relationship of Hellenistic poetry to earlier literature, since it assumes ‘pure’ pre-Hellenistic genres which are then ‘crossed’ in the Hellenistic period to produce new ‘hybrids’ (the biological conception underlying this should be clear), which underplays the degree to which earlier examples of different genres were already using elements from different genres (Simonides’ Plataea elegy is a good example). See further Fantuzzi , Barchiesi , Farrell : –, Morrison : –. Ian McEwan’s  novel Enduring Love makes extensive use of scientific texts, by imitating key aspects of scientific discourse (a main character appears to suffer from an erotomaniacal condition called de Clérambault’s syndrome; the novel’s narrator is a scientific journalist; appendix  is a case history apparently reprinted from the ‘British Review of Psychiatry’ and purporting to form the raw material from which the novel was shaped, but in fact written by McEwan himself ). But the novel’s generic identity remains clear, though it employs many of the tropes, subject matter and other markers of medico-scientific discourse. On the novel as representing the ‘conflicts between scientific, literary, and religious worldviews’ see Greenberg .



Introduction

to demonstrate how their employment affects readers of the epic in different ways, including controlling, manipulating and frustrating the readers’ generic expectations of an epic and what it should properly contain, destabilising the authority of the epic narrator as a reliable means for accessing the mythological events depicted in the epic, and complicating the use of mythological characters from the Argonautic past as analogues or exemplars for contemporary Hellenistic rulers. One of the ways in which the last is achieved is through key intertexts with Herodotus, whose presentation of kings and tyrants is repeatedly engaged with in the Argonautica in such a way as to present kingship within the epic as complex and problematic. Accordingly my approach can be characterised as both a reader-response and intertextual analysis and forms part, therefore, of the recent and ongoing investigation into the complex literary texture of Hellenistic poetry. This book examines the relationship between one particular epic, the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, and the discourse of historiography with a particular focus on the Histories of Herodotus. It is not, then, a treatment of the reception of Herodotus in the Hellenistic period (for which we now have Jessica Priestley’s important monograph) nor a comprehensive account of Herodotus’ place in the development of historiography (though I offer a sketch of Herodotus’ legacy in this regard in the Herodotean Thought-World section, Chapter ). But, one might object, why should Herodotus be the focus of such a discourse-based analysis, rather than historiography more generally, or a different historical text (Xenophon’s Anabasis, for example)? Why Herodotus? The reasons for selecting Herodotus as the main target of my investigation into Apollonius’ use of historiography are many. Herodotus has a defining role in establishing as central some key features of historiographical discourse (most obviously a concern with sources, but also a strong interest in ethnographical descriptions of different peoples); these are such that Herodotus, I argue below, is effectively for Apollonius the principal representative of the genre of historiography as well as the model for particular specific interactions. Herodotus is also central to the development of Hellenistic historiography. By the time Apollonius writes the Argonautica in the third century , historiography has become a well-established and flourishing genre within which Herodotus is a key 



Cf. e.g. Bing , Haslam , Hunter , Knight , Hunter , Acosta-Hughes , , Fantuzzi & Hunter , Morrison . In general on the Argonautica’s intertexts see Zanker : –, : –, Clauss : –, Cuypers , Köhnken : . See further the section Intertexts and Readers below. See pp. –.

Apollonius and Herodotus



figure, widely read, commented on and responded to in the Hellenistic period.19 Oswyn Murray has demonstrated the great degree to which Hellenistic historians were working within patterns established by Herodotus:20 in Murray’s view, Herodotus is the fountainhead for ‘the whole tradition of Hellenistic historical ethnography’ and the lens through which Hellenistic historians view the world, even where they are attacking his views.21 This picture has been largely confirmed by Jessica Priestley’s recent monograph on the Hellenistic reception of Herodotus,22 which demonstrates how various aspects of the Histories had profound and continuing importance for different kinds of Hellenistic literature (including, but not confined to, historiography), such as Herodotus’ geographical knowledge and opinions, his interest in wonders and his portrayal of the Persian Wars.23 Important too in the choice of Herodotus as the focus of my investigation into Apollonius’ use of historiography is the clear presence in some key parts of the Argonautica (notably passages in crucial parts of the narrative of the epic) of particularly intense intertextual engagement with the Histories:24 this engagement is widespread and extensive, further underlining the importance of Herodotus as a key reference-point for the Argonautica. It should be emphasised that arguing that Herodotus is a key intertextual reference-point for Apollonius does not entail that I view Herodotus as the most important intertext of the Argonautica: that position is clearly occupied by the Homeric epics. The Argonautica is ‘saturated’ with references to and developments of Homeric language, episodes,

  



   

Murray : –, Priestley : passim and –, and see pp. – below. Murray . Murray : ,  and see pp. – below. The Alexander-historians form a particularly clear example of the importance of Herodotus for later historiography: see in general Pearson  and Vasunia : . See also Whitmarsh : – for Herodotean characteristics such as ‘digressiveness’ and ‘thrilling, episodic narrative’ in later historians such as Ephorus, Theopompus and Ctesias. See Priestley : – for a survey (building on Murray ) of Herodotus’ importance for (e.g.) Nearchus, Hecataeus of Abdera, Manetho. The wider recognition in recent scholarship of taking Herodotus’ reception in the Hellenistic period is shown by the place of Herodotus in Hornblower’s recent commentary on Lycophron (Hornblower ). See also Engels : – for Herodotus’ importance for later historiography and in general on the reception of Herodotus Priestley & Zali (eds.) . See Priestley : – (geography), – (wonders), – (Persian Wars). See pp. – and – below. On the overall distribution of interaction with Herodotus in Apollonius see pp. – below. Hunter : . E.g. on Apollonius’ reminiscences (alongside careful variation) of Homeric formulaic diction through the creation of a ‘para-formularity’ see Fantuzzi , Fantuzzi & Hunter : –.



Introduction

characters and structures. Nevertheless, Herodotus plays a key role (I shall argue) in helping Apollonius to qualify the relationship of his epic to the Iliad and Odyssey: it is, after all, no Homeric pastiche, but a modern, slimmed-down four books (to stand against the forty-eight of Homer), which begins by announcing it will relate ‘the glorious deeds (κλέα) of men of long ago’ (A.R. .) but carefully sidelines the description of heroic battles which the echo of the Iliadic κλέα ἀνδρῶν (Il. .) might have led some readers to expect. Accordingly, the presence of Herodotus in the midst of the development of Homeric characters and scenes allows us as critics to use Herodotus as a means of locating more precisely the modification and qualification of Homer in the Argonautica and its effect on its readers, while the adaptation of Homer allows us in turn to triangulate the use of Herodotus by Apollonius and the difference it makes to readers. Nevertheless, it is important to make clear that the intertextual density of the Argonautica is such that inevitably any study concentrating on one or two intertextual relationships is bound to sideline other important relationships of this nature. I have little to say in this book, for instance, about Apollonius’ use of tragedy or archaic and early Classical lyric, though both are of great importance at different points in the epic. However, it is the Argonautica’s very complexity which means that studies focusing on particular relationships can bring important aspects of the epic to light, and make possible (in part, at least) a reassessment of the poem’s interaction with its other intertexts. In this book I restrict myself in this regard largely to highlighting where Herodotus is being used to articulate a difference from Homer; this does not imply that I do not think other intertextual relationships are important.



   



The Argonautica is particularly closely related to the Odyssey: on the pervasive use of the Odyssey by the Argonautica see especially Dufner  (including a useful summary at –); see also Knight : –, Hunter : –. See Fränkel : – on the tendency to avoid expected battles in Apollonius. On the beginning of the Argonautica see pp. – below. Cf. Dufner : – on the modification enabled by features of other texts or genres of Apollonius’ reception of the Odyssey. Cf. also Fränkel : , Beye : –. See further on this characteristic of Hellenistic poetry in general and the Argonautica in particular pp. – below. A useful parallel is provided by the observations of Hexter  on the privileging in reception studies of work on the reception history of individual authors or texts (as opposed to more in-depth accounts of particular moments of reception) and the consequences of such a focus, along with the thoughtful response in Priestley : –. Given the pervasiveness of the Argonautica’s engagement with Homer, however, focusing on those passages or elements in which historiography is a significant element in the transformation of earlier epic will also inevitably leave out some aspects of the relationship between Homer and Apollonius

Apollonius and Herodotus



Herodotus, of course, himself develops (and modifies) the Homeric epics in his own work; such modification explains in part why he plays a crucial role in the modification of Homeric epic which we find in Apollonius. Herodotus’ own self-definition in terms of kleos is important at the beginning of the Argonautica, but the use in this way of Herodotus by Apollonius is widespread. Scenes which develop principally Homeric episodes or characters also often contain crucial interaction with Herodotus. A brief example will suffice here. Towards the end of book  of the Argonautica, when the Argonauts have passed through many dangers, they reach the island of Drepane, where the Phaeacians live. They welcome the Argonauts warmly (A.R. .–), but soon a group of pursuing Colchians arrives determined to repatriate Medea. It is only King Alcinous who prevents violence on their part (A.R. .–). The wider Argonautic Phaeacian episode carefully develops and varies the Phaeacian books of the Odyssey. Medea desperately pleas for help from Arete (in a scene which replays Odysseus’ appeals to Arete’s (future) daughter, Nausicaa, in Od.  and to Arete herself in Od. ), as well as from the Argonauts. The bedroom scene in which we hear Alcinous and Arete in conversation about Medea fills in the gap left at the very end of Od.  where we are told of Alcinous and Arete sharing their marital bed (Od. .–). Their discussion, however, also importantly develops the bedroom scene of Darius and Atossa in book  of Herodotus. The Homeric Alcinous also recalls a Herodotean Persian king. Atossa has undertaken to return the favour which the Greek doctor Democedes, who is keen to return home, has done her by curing a worrying-sounding ‘growth’ (Hdt. .) on her breast, and she addresses her husband on his behalf. The situations in the corresponding Herodotean and Apollonian scenes are similar, husband with wife ‘in bed’ (ἐν τῇ κοίτῃ, Hdt. ..; ἐνὶ λεχέεσσι, A.R. .), and the structure of both episodes is also closely similar, beginning with an appeal by the wife, followed by a response from the husband and then a response by the wife. In Herodotus this takes the form of a further speech by Atossa

    

where historiographical discourse does not play this role. But that wider relationship (though crucial) falls outside the scope of this book.  See pp. – below. See also on this episode pp. – below. Dufner : –. That is, future from the perspective of the dramatic setting of the Argonautica, before the Odyssey (Fränkel : , Vian : , Dufner : ). So Hunter : –. See Hutchinson :  n. , Hunter : , Priestley : –.



Introduction

(Hdt. ..); in Apollonius Arete rises from her bed to summon her herald to tell Jason to have sex with Medea, in order that she not be separated from her ‘husband’ (A.R. .ff.). Both scenes also end with immediate action: in Herodotus, Darius ταῦτα εἶπε καὶ ἅμα ἔπος τε καὶ ἔργον ἐποίεε (‘so he spoke and at once he did word and deed’, Hdt. ..), while Arete αὐτίκα δ’ ὦρτο | ἐκ λεχέων ἀνὰ δῶμα· συνήιξαν δὲ γυναῖκες | ἀμφίπολοι, δέσποιναν ἑὴν μέτα ποιπνύουσαι (‘at once arose from her bed and went through the house, and her servingwomen hastened together, bustling after their mistress’, A.R. .–). Arete outdoes Darius here, however – his ‘immediate’ carrying out of his plan in fact waits until morning (ἐπείτε γὰρ τάχιστα ἡμέρη ἐπέλαμψε, ‘So as soon as day had dawned’, Hdt. ..), whereas Arete leaps into action straightaway. More importantly, however, while Alcinous himself echoes the role Darius plays in the Herodotus scene, he describes Aietes in a manner which makes him sound very much like the Persian Great King: οὐδὲ μὲν Αἰήτην ἀθεριζέμεν, ὡς ἀγορεύεις, | λώιον· οὐ γάρ τις βασιλεύτερος Αἰήταο, | καί κ’ ἐθέλων, ἕκαθέν περ, ἐφ’ Ἑλλάδι νεῖκος ἄγοιτο (‘nor would it be better, as you suggest, to make light of Aietes. No one is more kingly than Aietes, and if he wanted, though he is far away, he could bring war against Greece’, A.R. .–). Aietes is not only someone not to be crossed; he is ‘most kingly’, strongly recalling the Achaemenid Persian kingly self-presentation as ‘King of Kings’ (e.g. on the Behistun inscription) as well as the common Greek description of the Persian king as ὁ μέγας βασιλεύς (‘the Great King’, cf. e.g. Isoc. ., ., Ar. Ach. ). And Aietes is even more reminiscent of the kings of Persia: he is able to bring war to Greece itself from afar, in the manner of Darius or Xerxes (as Alexander of Macedon makes clear of the latter at Hdt. .β.). The engagement with Herodotus here takes place at a key stage of the narrative of the Argonautica: Alcinous’ decision ensures the marriage of Jason and Medea and their return to Greece (and hence the later events of their relationship as depicted, most famously, in Euripides’ Medea), and the scene is appropriately heavy with foreshadowing of these later events, particularly through the mention of the potential offspring of Jason and  

As noted by Mori a: ; cf. Priestley : –. Cf. e.g. the echoes in the speech of Argos when the Argonauts are at a loss as to how to escape the pursuing Colchians (A.R. .–) of Croesus’ fateful crossing of the Halys river (Hdt. .) which marked the border between the Lydian and Persian empires (Hdt. ..) and of the map Aristagoras uses to try to convince the Spartans (unsuccessfully, Hdt. .) and then the Athenians (successfully, Hdt. .) to support the Ionian revolt. See further pp. – below.

Apollonius and Herodotus



Medea (οὐδέ γενέθλην, | εἴ τιν’ ὑπὸ σπλάγχνοισι φέρει, δῄοισιν ὀπάσσω, ‘nor will I, if she is carrying offspring in her womb, hand it over to enemies’, A.R. .–) and the separation of Medea from her husband (λέκτρον δὲ σὺν ἀνέρι πορσαίνουσαν, | οὔ μιν ἑοῦ πόσιος νοσφίσσομαι, ‘if she shares her husband’s bed I will not separate her from her spouse’, A.R. .–). The scene in Herodotus is also a crucial moment in that narrative: the conversation of Darius and Atossa is what first brings Greece to Darius’ attention, so that this is one ‘beginning’ of the conflict between Greeks and Persians. This notion of ‘beginning’ the conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks further connects the two scenes, because of course from the perspective of the sources cited in Herodotus’ proem, we can see Alcinous’ decision and Arete’s subsequent action not only as the beginning of the Medea part of the Jason and Medea story, but also as itself the beginning of the kind of conflict which Alcinous anticipates Aietes might bring against the Greeks, because in the Herodotean proem the abduction (and non-return) of Medea features as a key link in the chain of events leading to the wars between the Greeks and the Persians (Hdt. ..–). The Herodotean intertext modifies and complicates the use of Homeric characters in the Argonautic Phaeacian episode. Jason and Medea’s visit to Alcinous and Arete is not simply a glimpse into the Odyssean backstory, nor an unproblematic portrayal of an idealised ruling couple. Rather the just and engaging Alcinous is given Persian associations, which point to different explanations in Herodotus of the conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks, and remind readers of the role Alcinous himself implicitly plays in the Persian account at the beginning of Herodotus (and in generating the later tragic events of Euripides’ Medea). This in turn destabilises his otherwise idealised portrait in the epic (with important consequences for the interpretation of the poem against its historical and political background). Examining the use of Herodotus here allows us to see more clearly the full import of the development of a Homeric episode and Homeric characters and its full effect on readers. It forms a further demonstration of the complexity of the literary texture of the Argonautica and the way in which historiographical intertexts need to be taken into account when examining the poem.   

See in general on the foreshadowing of the events of the Medea in the Argonautica Hunter : –, Clauss : , Hunter : –. See further on this aspect Chapter , pp. – and Chapter , pp. –. On the importance of the Persian account in the Herodotean proem for Apollonius, see Dufner : –. Cf. Hunter : –, Mori , a: .



Introduction

A further key reason for choosing Herodotus, which itself may in part explain the importance of the intertextual relationship, is the striking similarity between the perspectives of the Argonautica and the Histories. Both are Panhellenic in focus, rather than being confined to the mythology and history of a particular area (in the manner of a ktisis-poem or a local history, for example). Both texts narrate enterprises conducted by Greeks from different parts of the Greek world coming into contact with various groups of non-Greeks and both texts range widely over the ancient world, rather than being confined to one particular locale. Important too is the possibility Jessica Priestley raises, on the basis of the tradition preserved in the Suda associating Herodotus with the Macedonian court at Pella, that the Ptolemies may have been particularly interested in possible links between Herodotus and a Macedonian royal family from which they could be portrayed as descending. Priestley suggests the alleged patronage of Herodotus by the Macedonian court of the fifth century may have provided a model for Posidippus and the Ptolemies and may explain the prominence in Posidippus of stories from Herodotus. If the Ptolemies were indeed interested in Herodotus in this manner then the use of Herodotus by Apollonius becomes particularly pointed, since I argue that Herodotus is employed to complicate the use of the mythological characters of the Argonautica as potential analogues or exemplars for Hellenistic rulers. It is worth making explicit this book’s broad scholarly context: important work on the Argonautica has investigated how elements reminiscent of other genres or modes of discourse can play a crucial role in the poem,        

On the Herodotean associations mobilised by Jason’s presentation of the Argonautic expedition as a Panhellenic one at A.R. .– see Dufner : –. See further pp. – below. See further on the Panhellenic dimensions of both Apollonius and Herodotus pp. – below. This aspect might also explain the important intertextual engagement with Xenophon’s Anabasis which we can also discern in the Argonautica: see further n.  and pp. – below. Suda Η  (s.v. Ἡρόδοτος), Ε  (s.v. Ἑλλάνικος) Adler. See Priestley : –. This tradition will have developed substantially after the death of Herodotus (Priestley : ). On the alleged relation of the Ptolemies to the royal house of Macedon, including Alexander the Great, see Tarn : –, Erskine : . Cf. Posisipp. A–B  ~ Hdt. . (Arion), A–B  ~ Hdt. .–,  (Polycrates’ ring, Anacreon). See also Chapter , pp. – below. See esp. Chapter , pp. –, Chapter , pp. – below. Particularly important in this regard are the approaches of Beye  and Dufner  to ‘alien’ genres being employed in key parts of the epic. See Beye : – on the presence of New Comedy in episodes such as the visits to Circe and the Phaeacians in A.R. . Dufner : – argues for the importation of a broader range of genres, including Herodotean historiography, in these episodes, where she sees the use of Herodotus as part of the development of a rationalising perspective which is sharply juxtaposed in the Argonautica with other elements reminiscent of the fantastical and supernatural. Both Beye and Dufner are building on the insights of scholars such as

Apollonius and Herodotus



which has led to a widespread recognition in recent years of the wide range of texts, including prose texts and historiography, which are relevant to intertextual readings of the Argonautica. There has therefore been an increasing amount of work exploring not simply resemblances between particular passages but in particular affinities between Apollonius and Herodotus at the level of such features as narrative voice. Recent work on the places and locales described in the Argonautica has in similar fashion moved away from examining the poem’s geography with particular reference to where Apollonius obtained information on faraway places towards a more nuanced picture of the role of space in the epic as a dynamic process, something experienced but also shaped by its characters and readers, culminating in William Thalmann’s recent study. Thalmann’s monograph is part of a wider turn in the study of Hellenistic poetry in the last twenty years or so towards its socio-cultural contexts and circumstances of production, a turn which shows a particular interest in the Ptolemies and the political dimensions and implications of the poetry produced under their patronage. The relationship of the Argonautica to the Ptolemaic kingdom and the poem’s political ramifications are also aspects I regard as central to a proper understanding of the poem (though

 



 

Fränkel, who regularly notes in his commentary the modification of epic practice in the Argonautica through Apollonius’ use of features more characteristic of other genres, as when Argos in the speech about an alternative route to Greece in book  resembles a historiographical researcher or Herodotean informer (: –). For the flourishing of the broader study of the narrative of the Argonautica has also bloomed in the past thirty years: see (e.g.) Fusillo , Hunter , Byre , Berkowitz , Morrison : –. See n.  above for Xenophon’s Anabasis as an intertext for the Argonautica. See in particular the important contributions of Harder  and Cuypers , and also the earlier narratological analysis of Apollonian ethnography in the light of historiography in Fusillo : –. Cf. also the general affinity between some sections of A.R. and parts of Herodotus’ manner observed by some critics, e.g. Bulloch a: , who comments that A.R. .– (describing the plain of Circe at Colchis) ‘reads more like a chapter from Herodotus’ Histories’. Some earlier work on this relationship was confined to isolated treatments of particular passages containing some ostensibly Herodotean material (usually conceived of in terms of content, rather than aspects of narrative technique or elements of discourse): Riemann’s  dissertation on the reception of Herodotus in antiquity (Das herodoteische Geschichtswerk in der Antike) is a good example: it restricts itself to noting some particular resemblances of content, such as the relationship between the Argonauts offering Triton a tripod in Libya at A.R. .– and the similar story at Hdt. . (Riemann : –: on the use of Herodotus in this Argonautic episode see pp. – below). Thalmann . The classic work on Apollonius’ geography is Delage . On the forerunners of Thalmann’s study of space, such as Romm : –, Endsjø , Cusset , Hunter , Meyer , Stephens , see Thalmann :  n. , –. On the relationship of this monograph to the search for Apollonius’ geographical ‘sources’ see pp. – below. See, e.g., Thalmann : –. See, e.g., Hunter: : –, Selden , Stephens , , , Mori a.



Introduction

my reading is somewhat different from some recent readings of the epic against its socio-political context).

History and Fiction It is crucial when examining the employment of aspects of historiography by Apollonius to acknowledge the fundamental differences between the genres of history and epic, since these differences are key to the ways in which historiography is exploited in the Argonautica. For Aristotle, famously, (mimetic) poetry is more philosophical than history, because the former is about universals, the latter simply about particulars. History is just what happened, while epic (and tragedy) impose (or select) a coherent, interconnected order on the events of their narratives, which enables them to be about ‘the kind of thing that might happen’. This difference is more profound than simply the formal distinction between prose and verse: on this view Herodotus in verse would still be history (unphilosophical and about particulars). Some modern critical theorists, such as Hamburger and especially Dorrit Cohn, have also posited a sharp divide between history on the one hand and what Cohn terms fiction proper, that is ‘nonreferential literary narrative’, which ‘itself creates the world to which it refers by referring to it’, as opposed to historical narrative, which inevitably (in Cohn’s view) involves a further narratological ‘referential level’ in addition to the traditional narratological categories of ‘story’ and ‘discourse’: history is generically committed to verifiable documentation of its claims about what really happened, but fiction is not. In this bipartite model epic poetry would appear to fall firmly within the category of fiction (and indeed Cohn traces the development of fiction in her sense   

 



See pp. – below. On Aristotle’s characterisation of poetry and history here see pp. – below and in general de Ste Croix , Halliwell : –, Priestley : –. Arist. Po. .a–b: ὁ γὰρ ἱστορικὸς καὶ ὁ ποιητὴς οὐ τῷ ἢ ἔμμετρα λέγειν ἢ ἄμετρα διαφέρουσιν (εἴη γὰρ ἂν τὰ Ἡροδότου εἰς μέτρα τεθῆναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἂν εἴη ἱστορία τις μετὰ μέτρου ἢ ἄνευ μέτρων)· ἀλλὰ τούτῳ διαφέρει, τῷ τὸν μὲν τὰ γενόμενα λέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο (‘Because the historian and the poet do not differ in their use or non-use of verse, since if Herodotus were put into verses it would be no less a history in verses than without verses: they differ in this, that one speaks of things that have happened, the other of the kind of things that might happen’). See also below pp. –.  See Hamburger , Cohn , , . Cohn : . On these narratological categories (fundamental to the narratological analysis of texts) see Chatman : –, –, Bal : , Genette : ; on their history see Chatman : –, Lowe : –. Cohn : .

History and Fiction



to the Aristotelian concept of mimesis, itself exemplified by epic poetry), which can be further paralleled in some ancient critical thinking on the nature of different kinds of narrative. Sextus Empiricus, in his Against the Mathematicians, outlines a set of categories which defines ‘history’ (ἱστορία) as the presentation of truth, of things that happened, ‘fiction’ (πλάσμα) as the presentation of things which did not happen but resemble those that did happen, and ‘myth’ (μῦθος) as the presentation of things which did not happen and do not resemble the truth but are, rather, false. These critical perspectives capture something important about the differences between historical and fictional narratives, including those of epic, though it might be better to view them (especially when examining ancient texts) as broad tendencies rather than theoretical universals. They also point to a crucial aspect of Apollonius’ use of historiography: Apollonius destabilises the generic differences which Cohn, Sextus Empiricus and others identify as fundamental to the nature of historical and fictional or mythic narrative, not least in his use of key elements of historiographical discourse and constant reference to the ‘referential level’ identified by Cohn as an indispensable element of historical (but not fictional) narrative. Apollonius employs several markers of historical narrative within his epic, such as the marking of narratorial speculation (rather than certainty) about his characters’ mental states, the existence of proof of the story he is telling in the external world, and an ongoing concern with the sources of his story. In part this demonstrates that the ancient conceptions of history and fiction are more complicated than the situation outlined by Cohn, but more importantly it points to a key aspect of the role historiographical discourse plays in the Argonautica. One can 

 

 

Cohn : –. In fact the boundaries in this regard between history and fiction seem more porous in antiquity than those Cohn identifies between modern fictional narrative forms such as the novel and modern historical narrative. See pp. – above, pp. – below and Baragwanath :  n. . M. .–. A similar schema is present in Quintilian, Inst. .. where he contrasts fabula (non a veritate modo sed etiam a forma veritatis remota, ‘not only far from truth but even from the appearance of truth’) with historia (in qua est gestae rei expositio, ‘in which there is the narration of things which happened’) with argumentum as an intermediate type. See Bowersock :  with n.  and Feeney : –. See n.  above. Such destabilising does not turn the Argonautica into history: the generic differences between epic and historiography remain fundamental to the epic, but they are exploited to control and frustrate the readers’ expectations of epic. Cf. e.g. the similar frustration of epic generic expectations brought about by Lucan’s sidelining of the gods, a normal part of the generic landscape of epic, in the Bellum Civile (on which see Feeney : –).



Introduction

view the absence in Homeric epic of a concern with establishing or evaluating sources to document statements about the events in the storyworld or about the motivation of particular characters as a strong generic cue to its audience (and later readers) as to what they might expect from the text, an important part of the means by which their ‘horizon of expectations’ is created and controlled. Conversely the attention in historiography with identifying and assessing sources for (amongst other things) particular events, ethnic customs and psychological motivations, alongside the differentiation between inferences (which are made on the basis of perhaps incomplete or debatable evidence) and more certain knowledge, are strong generic cues for a different set of audience/reader expectations. In Apollonius, however, we find the employment of this documentary, historiographical mode with regard to mythological events in the framework of an epic, thus raising the problem of sources within a genre where such concerns do not normally arise, and so destabilising his readers’ sense of what they should expect from his epic: Apollonius complicates the generic expectations of the kind of relationship one will find between epic narrative and a referential data base standing behind the story as well as ultimately problematising the narrator’s authoritative knowledge of the events and motivations within it. The use of aspects of historiographical discourse in this way points us to another reason why Herodotus in particular should be a central referencepoint for the Argonautica. Herodotus is the most prominent historian who could himself be associated in different ways with fiction as well as history. Thucydides (..) appears to have Herodotus in mind when he distinguishes his own account and approach (‘based on the clearest evidence’, ἐκ τῶν ἐπιφανεστάτων σημείων) not only from those of poets, but also prose logographers, both in terms of their aims (‘what is more attractive to  

Cf. Jauss : –, –. See further the next section, Intertexts and Readers. Although Cohn :  emphasises that fiction in her sense does not depend on the further ‘referential level’ of historical narrative, but rather creates its own story-world itself (even historical novels set during real, historical events create the lives, motivations, narratives of their fictional characters), ancient critics and readers often characterised the events of epic as having taken place in the distant past (see Feeney : –), so that the situation for ancient epic is more complex than for the modern novel (for example). But the distance of the Homeric epic world, which leaves no traces in our world save for the song through which we hear of it (cf. Bakhtin : – on the ‘walled off’ nature of epic), and the differences between the heroes on the one hand and the audience of the epic on the other (cf. the passages contrasting the much greater strength of heroes as compared with ‘such as mortals today are’ (οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσ’), e.g. Il. .–) mean that the world of Homeric epic is effectively self-created and requires no further referential level. Apollonius, on the other hand, shatters the ‘absolute past’ of Homeric epic and makes regular reference to the traces left behind by his Argonauts (see Fusillo : –, Hunter : –).

History and Fiction



the listener, rather than what is truer’, τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον) and content (subject matter which has to a large degree passed into τὸ μυθῶδες, ‘legend’). Critics in antiquity could go further still: Herodotus could be presented as an outright liar, as he is by Ctesias (FGrH  T) and most famously by Plutarch (De Herodoti malignitate), who warns against not only Herodotus’ κακοήθεια (‘bad character’, e.g. f, a), whence the title, but also his βλασφημία (‘slander’) and κακολογία (‘abuse’, b), characterising Herodotus’ work as featuring many ψεύσματα καὶ πλάσματα (‘lies and fictions’, f ), as part of an apologetic and polemical project on behalf of his Boeotian ancestors. It is tempting to see the potential criticism which could be levelled at Herodotus for inaccuracy or falsehood as part of the same broad cultural development which encompassed the criticism of epic poetry for containing material (e.g. on the gods) which was false or unbelievable: it is certainly striking that early historiographers such as Hecataeus of Miletus or Herodotus himself contrast the reliability and accuracy of their own enterprises to those of others (a tradition continued by Thucydides, as we have seen). These critical perspectives on both epic and historiography will have formed an important part of the background for both Apollonius and his readers. If Herodotus himself could be viewed (albeit by those writing from a polemical or critical standpoint) as combining modes of discourse appropriate to poetry with those of historiography, or as a  

 



On the Thucydidean self-presentation here and its relationship to Herodotus, see Hornblower : –. See in general on Herodotus’ presentation as containing lies or stories of fabulous character Priestley : –. As Priestley notes, in this aspect too there is a connection with Homer, since Homer himself could be presented as a liar in some ancient texts. See further on Plutarch’s account of Herodotus Baragwanath : –. Particularly clear examples can be found in a range of genres, e.g. Xenophanes (DK  B.) rejecting the πλάσματα τῶν προτέρων (‘fictions of earlier [sc. poets]’) from a well-ordered symposium, Pindar (N. .–) on the Homeric exaggerations of Odysseus’ suffering, and the philosophical objections expressed in the Republic of Plato to poetry’s particular untruths (e.g. about the afterlife, b–c or the gods, d–e), and the more general metaphysical position that poetry can have no claim to truth whatsoever (a–b). But it is also true that from a very early stage Greek poets (and audiences) were aware of the power of poetry to deceive: at Hes. Th.  the Muses themselves boast of their power to tell ‘many lies alike to truths’ (ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα). Cf. Feeney : –, Whitmarsh : – and see in general on poetry and lies Pratt , Bowie . Hecataeus of Miletus (FGrH  Fa) characterises his writing as about what he deems to be ‘true’ (ἀληθέα) as opposed to the λόγοι . . . γελοῖοι (‘laughable stories’) of the Greeks, while Herodotus begins with a review of what is said by Persian (and Phoenician) logioi, on which he suspends judgement (..) before moving to the person who can definitively be said to be amenable to historical enquiry, Croesus (see Asheri et al. : , pp. ,  below). See also Whitmarsh : .



Introduction

potentially deceptive storyteller, this would make him a particularly interesting text with which to engage for Apollonius, whose epic presents at the beginning a very different way of providing narrative authority from the traditional Muses of epic, one much more reminiscent of historiographical authorising strategies, only for this narrative authority to be complicated as the epic progresses. This discussion of the narratological and theoretical distinctions and connections between historiography and genres such as epic and their importance for my examination of the role historiographical discourse plays in the Argonautica should help to articulate the differences between this book and earlier work on Apollonius’ ‘sources’ for the Argonautica, such as Mooney’s section on the ‘Sources of the Argonautica’ in his  commentary, or Delage’s examination of the geographical knowledge in Apollonius, or Pearson’s study of Apollonius’ use of the ‘old geographers’, which sets itself the task of identifying as far as possible which authors Apollonius depended on for (some of ) the diverse facts of geography, ethnography or anthropology contained within the poem: Mooney, for example, characterises himself as ‘trying to sketch briefly the materials at his [sc. Apollonius’] disposal when he began to write’. Such work is part of a long tradition, since it is clearly visible in the scholia to the Argonautica, who often make reference to Apollonius ‘following’ a particular text, including scholarly prose works, as when we are told that Apollonius depends on one Nymphodorus (presumably the ethnographer of Amphipolis) for his description of the gendered treatment of corpses by the Colchians. But it is emphatically not my aim in this book to reconstruct Apollonius’ desk in the Alexandrian Library and determine which book-rolls were most often present at his elbow when writing the Argonautica. Rather this book is about the aspects of historiographical discourse adopted and adapted by Apollonius and the ways in which particular intertexts with historical narratives such as Herodotus’ Histories  

 

   See pp. –. Mooney : –. Delage . Pearson . Such work, it should be emphasised, is not unsophisticated: Pearson, for example, is acutely aware of ascertaining Apollonius’ dependence on a particular source for a particular fact, and on the dangers of assuming that a scholiast’s assertion of a dependence is proof of that dependence (: –). Mooney : . Schol. ad A.R. .–a: ὅτι τὰ μὲν ἄρσενα σώματα οὐ θέμις Κόλχοις οὔτε καίειν οὔτε θάπτειν, βύρσαις δὲ νεαραῖς εἱλοῦντες ἐκρέμων τῶν ἀρσένων τὰ σώματα, τὰ δὲ θήλεα τῇ γῇ ἐδίδοσαν, ὥς φησι Νυμφόδωρος, ᾧ ἠκολούθησε (‘because it is not right for the Colchians to burn or bury male corpses they wrapped the corpses of men in raw hides and hung them up, but the female ones they gave to the earth, as Nymphodorus says, whom he is following’). Cf. schol. ad A.R. .–, ., ..

Intertexts and Readers



affect our reading of the poem. I do not enumerate or evaluate particular suggested prose sources for certain geographical or ethnographic facts or features: such an undertaking lies a long way beyond the scope of this project.

Intertexts and Readers This project is explicitly intertextual: it examines the dense literary texture of one particular Hellenistic poem with the vocabulary (e.g. ‘intertext’) but also a version of the methodology which has come to dominate the study of how much Greek and Latin poetry relates to other texts. This relationship with other texts is fundamental to Hellenistic poetry: one of the most striking characteristics of the poetry of (for example) Callimachus, Theocritus and Apollonius is the way in which other texts are frequently engaged with and used to ‘create meaning’. The textual interactions of this poetry are not additional extras thrown in to display a poet’s knowledge or virtuosity, but crucial to the way in which the texts operate. A good example is the way in which the longer Homeric Hymns of the Archaic period form the indispensable background against which Callimachus’ Hymns must be read, even where those poems break away from patterns established in the Homeric Hymns (e.g. by using elegiac couplets instead of hexameters in Hymn  or Doric dialect instead of epicIonic in Hymns  and ). The density, frequency and types of these references to and uses of other texts have been taken as a distinctive marker of Hellenistic poetry as distinct from its Archaic and Classical forerunners. Such is the intertextual character of Hellenistic poetry, then, that it is appropriate that in recent years study of its textual interrelations has become conducted more and more commonly in explicitly intertextualist terms, in part under the influence of the dominance of this mode in the     

 

On versions of the Argonautic myth in early Greek mythography, see Fowler : –. See Baraz & van den Berg :  for intertextuality as ‘a dominant model for the study of Latin poetry’. On intertextuality as a fundamental characteristic of Hellenistic poetry (and for some examples) see (e.g.) Harder , , Acosta-Hughes & Stephens , Acosta-Hughes : –. Cf. Fowler : –. See, e.g. Hunter : ‘Callimachus’ Hymns re-write the Homeric Hymns; each, to a greater or lesser extent, borrows directly from its archaic predecessors’ (–). See also Hunter-Fuhrer , Morrison : –. The range of intertexts for Callimachus’ Hymns is, however, much greater than simply the Homeric Hymns. See, e.g., Bing :  with n. . See Acosta-Hughes : – on the development of intertextual readings of Hellenistic poetry, and the influence on such an approach of Latin studies.



Introduction

reading of Latin poetry (itself, of course, in many aspects – and those not coincidentally – very similar to Hellenistic poetry). As the reading of ancient poetry in general has become more often framed in terms of ‘intertexts’, a vigorous debate has taken place within classics as to this methodology, both in terms of vocabulary (e.g. ‘intertext’ vs. ‘allusion’ vs. ‘quotation’ vs. ‘reference’, etc.) and approach. Here I outline my own approach in light of this debate. I employ the terms ‘intertext’ and ‘intertextuality’ and make use of some of the categories introduced by Gian Biagio Conte (‘modello-esemplare’, ‘modello-codice’) ultimately because of their usefulness for my analysis of the relationship between Apollonius and other texts (in this case, historiographical texts). I do not employ ‘intertextuality’ simply as a synonym for ‘allusiveness’ nor ‘intertext’ as a synonym for ‘text alluded to’. Rather, ‘intertextuality’ is the term which best describes the wide range of types of relationship texts can have with one another, from close verbal echoes to similarities of subject matter to resemblances between narrative patterns or organisational structures and so forth. Other terms (and their attendant methodologies or methodological assumptions) are for my purposes too closely focused on lexical or verbal similarity. Approaches which are framed, for example, as studies of ‘quotation’ of earlier texts by later ones are likely to privilege different kinds of similarity from those on which I focus attention in this book, since they proceed from an assumption of (more or less close) lexical similarity or repetition between texts. Something similar is also true of studies of ‘allusion’, ‘reference’ or ‘reminiscence’: such approaches tend 

  





See on the prominence of this mode in the reading of classical, esp. Latin poetry Fowler : –, Hinds : ch. , Baraz & van den Berg : –. In fact the well-spring of one prominent stream of intertextualist criticism of Latin poetry (that arising from the work of Gian Biagio Conte) was Pasquali’s  article on ‘arte allusiva’, which focused on Hellenistic poetry: see Pasquali , Thomas : –, Pucci : –. For orientation in this debate see Hinds : ch. , Edmunds : –, Baraz & van den Berg . See Conte : –, :  and Hinds : –. The employment of critical vocabulary cannot be separated from the effect such vocabulary has on the critic’s way of reading, since it necessarily affects his or her intellectual framework for viewing a particular text. Cf. Edmunds : , where the dependence of ‘quotation’ on the ‘repetition of words’ is explicit. Edmunds concedes that his notion of quotation ‘does not serve well to designate large-scale intertextual programs – for instance, Vergil’s relation to Hesiod in the Georgics’. Edmunds’ approach tries to incorporate such relationships into the analysis of the ‘contexts’ of the sourceand target-texts or to a more diffuse sense of ‘quotations’ which refer to ‘systems’, such as genres: see Edmunds : , –. Cf. Thomas  on ‘reference’, which he defines against ‘an accidental confluence, inevitable between poets dealing with a shared or related language’ () and Bagordo  on ‘Reminiszenzen’ (i.e. reminiscences) in tragedy of early lyric poetry.

Intertexts and Readers



to focus on close lexical similarity to earlier texts, often making close verbal echoes a criterion for the presence of an allusion or reference. Hellenistic poetry does engage with earlier literature at this close lexical level, but this fact should not distract from the other kinds of similarities texts can display, which include similarities of content, characters and characterisation, narrative techniques and structure. This book concerns the employment of various aspects of historiographical discourse in the Argonautica, a text in a different genre, with different formal properties (metre, epic dialect) and the necessary modifications and distortions these involve; furthermore, it examines (among other things) the way in which these interactions themselves affect and modify the crucial intertextual relationship of the Argonautica with the Homeric epics. Accordingly ‘intertextuality’ is the clearest and most useful term (and tool) with which to describe the type of interrelation I argue for between Apollonius and Herodotus. More particularly I adopt Conte’s distinction between different types of intertextual relationship, since it is extremely useful for articulating the use of and engagement with Herodotus in the Argonautica. Conte describes as a ‘modello-codice’, usually translated ‘code-model’, a text which functions as the representative of a genre or type, and therefore as a fundamental set of rules or expectations (a code) against which a later text defines itself. A good example is the way in which for Virgil’s Aeneid the Homeric epics function as the representative ‘code’ for the genre of epic poetry, that is the complex of generic features, tropes, topoi and techniques (e.g. the extended epic simile or typical scenes such as arming or receiving guests), which make up the matrix of possibilities a later text works with and against. Conte distinguishes this kind of relationship from the ‘modello-esemplare’ or ‘example-model’, where a particular passage from an earlier text functions as the specific model (the ‘example’) on which a later passage is based, as when Aeneas’ words to Dido in the Underworld (Aen. .) closely imitate the words of a lock of hair cut from the head of the 

    

Explicitly e.g. in Bagordo  (cf. §., ‘Anatomie einer Reminiszenz’, where a verbal/syntactic echo is necessary for a reminiscence to be acknowledged); implicitly in Giangrande , Thomas . Thomas : – explicitly takes as its starting point earlier work on the close engagement with Homeric diction in Hellenistic poetry, such as Giangrande . See (e.g.) Rengakos , ,  on Hellenistic poets engaging closely with Homeric textual variants and details of Homeric exegesis. See Knight : , Morrison : . Cf. Hinds : . ‘Model as Code’ is Edmunds’ translation (: ). See Conte : , Hinds : –. Edmunds :  renders this as ‘Exemplary Model’ (on the problems of this translation see Hinds :  n. ). I use ‘example-model’ interchangeably with ‘modello-esemplare’ in this book.



Introduction

Ptolemaic queen Berenice II in Catullus’ translation of Callimachus’ Coma Berenices (Cat. .). This distinction well captures, in my view, the double function of Herodotus in the Argonautica, as both a key intertext for particular, important passages in the epic (that is, Herodotus as providing several key example-models at crucial points in Apollonius), and as a more general reference-point as the representative (or code-model) for a type of discourse (and its constituents characteristics, features, techniques, narrative structures and devices, strategies of authorisation and so on). Indeed, as I argue below, Herodotus becomes the ‘modello-codice’ for historiography at an early stage and plays this role in a much wider range of texts. Conte’s approach to intertextual relations, however, clearly privileges the text over its readers – the quasi-Contean formulations of ‘modellocodice’ and ‘modello-esemplare’ above describe earlier texts as ‘models’ on which later texts can base themselves or against which they can define themselves. I would like to focus attention, in examining the double intertextual role of Herodotus in Apollonius, on the ways in which Herodotus and historiographical discourse affect readers’ experiences of the epic, since in fact intertextuality is in some sense located in the readers, rather than simply being a property of the text. Intertextual relations are perceived by readers, and it is only in the act of reading that such relations become activated. Crucial to the effect on readers of the use of historiography in the Argonautica are the readers’ expectations of both genres, epic 

  

 



invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi (‘Unwillingly, queen, I left your shore’, Aen. .) ~ invita, o regina, tuo de vertice cessi (‘Unwillingly, o queen, I left your head’, Cat. .). On the interpretation of this difficult intertext, see Lyne , Edmunds : –. See on this distinction Hinds : –. See above on the importance of Hdt. . for A.R. .– and see in general Chapter  below. Cf. Priestley : : ‘Although there are only a few occasions where Apollonius unambiguously alludes to Herodotus, it is enlightening to consider the direct points of contact between the two authors, and there are also occasions when Herodotus’ text seems an important part of the more general literary background into which Apollonius integrates his work’; Harder : : ‘one can distinguish several ways in which earlier texts may be alluded to: on the one hand there are allusions to specific passages in earlier authors, on the other hand there are certain aspects of literary technique which recall an earlier literary genre or author in general, without referring the reader to a specific passage’. These quotations do not quite capture the distinction Conte is making (and both are framed in terms of ‘allusion’), but they do hint at the crucial double function I explore in this book. See pp. – below. For criticism of Conte’s privileging of the text see Pucci : –, Edmunds : –, –. Contrast the approach at Fowler : –, where earlier texts constitute a matrix of possibilities for readers of later texts. See Fowler : –, Pucci : , , Laird : –, Edmunds : –.

Intertexts and Readers



and historiography, since genre forms a fundamental part of any reader’s ‘horizon of expectations’ for a given text. Examining this horizon of expectations will thus involve, for example, such studies as the establishment above of the differences between historical and fictional narrative such as epic, and the investigations below into the place of Herodotus within historiography and Apollonius’ relationship to contemporary Hellenistic epic. My approach is also, therefore, a ‘reader-response’ one: such an approach is particularly useful for both Herodotus and Apollonius because of the work demanded of readers of both texts to fill in gaps left in the narrative, make inferences about various aspects of the text, and interpret the material offered by the narrator. The demand on readers to make inferences about or interpret what a text only partially reveals is a fundamental aspect of the experience of reading. It is also closely tied to the linearity of the reading experience: this is true for the great majority of narrative texts, which in large part depend on reading taking place in a particular order and following the structure of the narrative to achieve many of their effects on readers. It has particular point, however, with regard to ancient texts read in the form of the papyrus roll, which was relatively cumbersome to roll and unroll, and which led to the division of longer narrative works into discrete numbered (and therefore ordered) rolls. Accordingly the importance  

 



On the role of genre in determining the reader’s ‘horizon of expectations’ see Jauss : –, –. Cf. also Edmunds : –. On the ‘gaps’ left by the Herodotean narrator and the demands placed on readers see Baragwanath : –, who highlights the absence at crucial junctures in the Histories of explicit narratorial judgement or summary, as at the close of the work, Hdt. ., the multiple and developing motivations of characters, etc. With regard to demands on readers in the Argonautica caused by gaps in the narrator’s account consider the frequent lack of access readers have to Jason’s motivation in the epic (see further pp. –, – below). On the centrality of gaps in the text to the reading process of any text, see Iser : – and cf. also Sternberg : : ‘The literary text may be conceived of as a dynamic system of gaps. A reader who wishes to actualize the field of reality that is represented in a work, to construct (or rather reconstruct) the fictive world and action it projects, is necessarily compelled to pose and answer, throughout the reading-process, such questions as, What is happening or has happened, and why? What is the connection between this event and the previous ones? What is the motivation of this or that character?’ The same applies mutatis mutandis for listening to ‘orally received’ texts. See esp. Sternberg  for a detailed exploration of this aspect: pp. – tackle the linearity (and interpretative demands made on readers/listeners) of the Odyssey. Consider with regard to Apollonius the unfolding of various pieces of information about how and why Pelias has sent the Argonauts on their quest, such as the apparent involvement of compulsion revealed at A.R. .–, which was not hinted at in earlier mentions of the task, such as A.R. .–. See Byre : –. Byre : – outlines the ‘gappiness’ of the narrative of the Argonautica. See also Hutchinson : – on the importance of the linearity of reading the Argonautica and some consequent effects and Lowe : – on linearity as fundamental to narrative texts. See van Sickle : –.



Introduction

of the order and development of the Argonautica, and the use to which Herodotus is put in different parts of the developing epic will also form an important part of my analysis, one which itself reflects a ‘readerresponse’ approach. However, it has been a shortcoming of some readerresponse approaches to Apollonius not to take sufficient account of intertexts when analysing readers’ developing experiences through the epic: I aim to combine attention to readers’ experiences in the Argonautica with an analysis of the contribution of historiographical discourse to that experience. In order to examine the relationship between the texts of Herodotus and Apollonius, detailed exploration of individual passages is necessary; it is an indispensable element in establishing and determining the significance of similarities and differences between the two texts, both from the perspective of Herodotus as ‘modello-esemplare’ and as ‘modellocodice’.

The Shape of the Argument: History and Politics A short overview of the structure of the book will make its focus, the place of Herodotus, and the development of the argument clearer still. In Chapter  (‘Receiving Herodotus’) I begin by surveying briefly the relationship of later historiography and critical thinking about the genre to Herodotus’ Histories, as part of the investigation into the Apollonian reader’s horizon of expectations with regard to history. The next section moves on to examine the connections between Herodotus, ‘local’ histories and especially ‘local’ epics in the Hellenistic period (e.g. those by Rhianus of Bene), and argues that both Herodotus and Apollonius share a distinctly Panhellenic perspective which differentiates them from the more concentrated focus on particular locales or peoples in much Hellenistic literature. Chapter  (‘Creating Authorities’) turns its attention to various features of historiographical discourse, as exemplified by Herodotus (acting as ‘modello-codice’ for historiography for Apollonius), including the presentation of the primary narrator’s sources for his narrative, the critical evaluation of such evidence by the narrator, the degree of knowledge the narrator displays about the events he is narrating, the portrayal of the motivation and psychology of characters and the use of an ethnographic perspective by the narrator (and in some cases the characters). In this way I examine how various aspects of the ‘historiographical mode’ are transformed and exploited by Apollonius: I argue, for example, that Apollonius takes up 

See, e.g., Cuypers :  reviewing Byre .

The Shape of the Argument: History and Politics



Herodotus’ ethnographic perspective in the Histories and employs it with regard to the heroic age itself in the Argonautica, and also that Apollonius complicates his epic narrator’s authority by deriving his authority in the beginning from his own research (employing the historiographical mode), but later (especially in books  and ) returning to a more traditional, epic authority derived from the Muses. In Chapter  (‘Explaining the Past’) I focus attention on the combination in the Argonautica of different attitudes to the past and ways of explaining past events, contrasting aetiology as employed in the Argonautica with explanations of origins in Herodotus and mythological aetiologies in poetic predecessors such as Pindar, to argue that Apollonius destabilises the connection between past and present by complicating the authority of the narrator accounting for present practice in the mythological past: the move from the historiographical mode with which the epic begins towards the ostensibly more traditional grounding of epic narrative authority in the Muses is designed to rupture, or at least to cast serious doubt on, the ability of the mythological mode of aetiology to authorise connections between past and present. This is illustrated in particular with reference to the most important aetion of all in the poem, the future foundation of Thera in book  (and the pointed omission of the founding of Cyrene). In Chapter  (‘Telling Stories’), I turn attention towards passages from Herodotus which provide particularly significant instances of a ‘modelloesemplare’ for a particular passage in the Argonautica. There is a distinct pattern of the passages involved coming at crucial points in their respective narratives, in particular with reference to the beginning of conflict between East and West, and Herodotus is also a key intertext at the end of the epic, where the foundation-story of Cyrene is begun but broken off. I argue that its treatment in Apollonius, alongside the problematising of the relationship between mythological past and Hellenistic present, has profound consequences for readings of the Argonautica which locate the epic within a particular socio-political context, since the epic works complicate (in part through the use of Herodotus) the potential of mythological characters in the epic to act as exemplars or analogues for any Hellenistic king or kingdom. This political aspect of my argument is further developed in the next two chapters. Chapter  (‘Greeks and Non-Greeks’) continues the exploration of Herodotus as a ‘modello-esemplare’ by examining a range of ethnographic descriptions from the Histories, such as those of the Persians and Egyptians, and their adaptation in the epic (contrast the earlier examination of ethnographic discourse in Chapter ). I argue that the complexities of the presentation of various ethnic groups in Herodotus



Introduction

are important for our reading of the Argonautica: the use by Apollonius of elements of the Herodotean descriptions of Persia and Egypt, for example, complicates any close or exclusive identification of particular Apollonian locations (or peoples) with their Hellenistic equivalents. This is further explored in Chapter  (‘Kings and Leaders’), which argues that Herodotus’ presentation of kings and tyrants is of particular relevance to Apollonius’ presentation of kingship in the shape of various kings and leaders in the Argonautica, including Pelias, Jason, Amycus, Aietes and Alcinous, again with political ramifications, since all of these figures are problematic exemplars or models, though in different ways. In this same chapter I also survey contemporary Hellenistic kingship ideology, as a further part of the examination of the Apollonian reader’s horizon of expectations when reading the epic. Chapter  (‘Conclusions and Consequences’) surveys the distribution of Herodotean material in Apollonius and reconsiders the subject of writing epic in the Hellenistic period and what Apollonius’ treatment of Herodotus can tell us about the Argonautica’s relationship with other Hellenistic poets and their engagement with the Ptolemaic kingdom. In particular I review how different the Argonautica is from a ‘local epic’ about Alexandria (or the Ptolemies) and argue that the use of Herodotean Panhellenic history as a central reference-point is a key move in articulating the perspective of the Argonautica on the mythological past and its relevance for the contemporary Hellenistic Mediterranean. It will be apparent that my view of the relationship of the Argonautica to its Ptolemaic context is rather different from that of some recent studies, such as those of Susan Stephens or Anatole Mori, to take two recent, prominent readings of the epic against its Ptolemaic and Egyptian political contexts. Both Stephens and Mori examine the Argonautica from the perspective of its participation in and expression of Ptolemaic ideology: Mori shows how various elements of the poem can be read productively against Hellenistic political practice and institutions, while Stephens 

 



One index of the difference is my reading of Alcinous’ presentation in Argonautica book , whom I view as problematised by affinities with the Herodotean Darius (see pp. – above), but which Mori a:  takes as flattering praise of Philadelphus. Stephens , , Mori a, b. Cf. e.g. Mori a:  on her work ‘taking into consideration the historical context of the Argonautica and the formation of Ptolemaic political ideology. I explore how Apollonius’ epic . . . engages the external world: the religious, socio-political, and ethical dynamics of Apollonius’ day’ and Stephens : , ‘Apollonius has in fact written a poem of and for the new hybrid political state.’ E.g. Jason’s election as leader (A.R. .–) as recalling Macedonian royal succession (Mori a: –). See further Chapter , pp. – below.

The Shape of the Argument: History and Politics



views Apollonius through a double lens of native Egyptian religious and regal practice and symbolism alongside Greek constructions of Egypt. Such work is an important part of the reconstruction of some aspects of the Hellenistic reader’s horizon of expectations, and it has deepened and broadened our understanding of the background against which Apollonius’ epic must be considered. My focus in this book, however, is to advert to the (irreducibly) difficult, problematic character of some key aspects of the poem and investigate how these complexities and ambiguities in the Argonautica complicate the poem’s relationship to the Ptolemies and their kingdom. Fundamental to the complication are the problematising in the Argonautica of the connection between past and present and the presentation of kingship in the poem, and in turn fundamental to both of these aspects is the role of Herodotus and historiography. Some readers will be reminded of ‘ambivalent’ readings of the Aeneid, which argue that certain key aspects of Virgil’s epic (not least the poem’s sudden ending with the death of Turnus at the hands of an angry and vengeful Aeneas, Aen. .–, who fails to live up to Anchises’ earlier injunction to parcere subiectis, Aen. .) deeply complicate that poem’s relationship to its own socio-political context. The complexities and ambiguities I discuss are different from those in Virgil, but there are some important similarities between my approach and ‘ambivalent’ readings of the Aeneid. As Richard Thomas has pointed out, such readings contain  





Stephens : –. Cf. e.g. ‘Nor, for that matter, does the poem allude to Medea’s future filicide or make an explicit connection between Apsyrtus’ death and later events depicted in tragedy’ (Mori a: ); ‘The Argonautica, by contrast [with the Aeneid], ends in happiness: its heroes are safe, the crisis of book  peaceably resolved. Jason and Medea have had time to find absolution: the pollution of kinmurder is cleansed, the war that threatens Greece is averted, and the wandering of the Argo brings the Greeks home – both to Pagasae in the present and to North Africa in the future.’ It is, in contrast, my view that the Euripidean Medea is a constant, complicating presence in the Argonautica (see pp. – above and – below), and that the connections between the Argonauts and the Hellenistic present are much more complex than implied here. Representatives of this approach include Parry , Clausen , Putnam , Johnson , Lyne , Thomas . Useful orientation on the scholarship on different ‘optimistic’ and ‘ambivalent’ readings of the Aeneid can be found in Thomas : xi–xx, Kelly : –. It should not be a surprise that there should be a parallel between Aeneid and Argonautica in this regard, since Virgil has read Apollonius extremely closely, and his epic engages throughout with the Argonautica. See on this relationship Hunter : –, Beye , Nelis , , Kelly . Mori a: – contrasts a pessimistic Aeneid with what she sees as an optimistic Argonautica. My own view of the implications for the Aeneid of sustained interaction with the Argonautica is closer to Richard Hunter’s: ‘In adopting and displaying the Argonautica within the Aeneid, Virgil placed near the centre of his work a nuanced and ironised poem which invited readings which could threaten to disturb, if not in fact subvert, the nationalist project upon which he was engaged’ (Hunter : ).



Introduction

and incorporate ‘Augustan’ readings of particular moments, scenes and episodes in the Aeneid, since critics such as Thomas are not claiming that there is no element of Augustan ideology contained within the epic, but rather that such elements are necessarily complicated and ambiguated by other elements in the poem. In like fashion I do not want to deny the relevance of Ptolemaic elements (or the wider Ptolemaic context) for the Argonautica, but I do want to draw attention to the problematic implications for these Ptolemaic aspects of some key features of the poem: we should not assume that Philadelphus precludes any possible ambiguity or complexity in the Argonautica any more than we should assume that Augustus guarantees its absence from the Aeneid.  

Thomas : . Cf. Thomas :  commenting on Stephen Harrison’s (‘Augustan’) assumptions about the Aeneid: ‘Harrison [Vergil, Aeneid , Oxford ] . . . is forced to conclude: “For such a poem [as the Aeneid] to be in any way ‘anti-Augustan’ [not the only alternative to ‘panegyric’] would be extraordinary; apart from the improbability of presenting unfavourably his patron and the sole ruler of Rome, Vergil had publicly anticipated praising that same man in heroic epic in his earlier poem the Georgics (.–), and the glorification of Augustus in the Aeneid is accordingly fullhearted and unambiguous” (xxiv). It is so because – it must be so.’

 

Receiving Herodotus

What did Herodotus mean for Apollonius’ readers in the Hellenistic period? How did Herodotus affect the historiography written in this period, and what associations did Herodotus have for the audience of Apollonius’ epic? It is to these questions that we turn in this chapter, by examining the relationship of Herodotus to Hellenistic historiography and the wider intellectual culture of the period.

Herodotus and Historiography: The Critical Perspective The importance that I have suggested Herodotus holds for Apollonius as a representative of the genre of historiography is by no means confined to the Argonautica: Herodotus plays a pivotal, defining role in the development of history in the most extensive critical analysis of historiography’s evolution which has survived from antiquity, Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On Thucydides. It is Herodotus, according to Dionysius, who first widens the scope of history beyond the focus on particular localities or peoples which was found in historians, such as Deiochus of Proconessus or Hecataeus of Miletus, who wrote ‘dividing up by peoples and cities and publishing them separately’ (κατ’ ἔθνη καὶ κατὰ πόλεις διαιροῦντες καὶ χωρὶς ἀλλήλων ἐκφέροντες, De Thuc. ). Herodotus, however, ‘included in a single work all of the notable events which happened among Greeks or barbarians in two hundred and twenty years’ (πάσας τὰς ἐν τοῖς κ' καὶ διακοσίοις ἔτεσι γενομένας πράξεις ἐπιφανεῖς Ἑλλήνων τε καὶ βαρβάρων μιᾷ συντάξει περιλαβών, De Thuc. ). Thucydides, Dionysius goes on to argue, then himself marks a further shift, choosing neither a local focus nor  

On which see Toye , Gozzoli /, Marincola : –, : –. Dionysius also lists among these historians with a local focus (which might be on particular barbarian groups as well as Greek communities) Eugeon of Samos, Eudemus of Paros, Democles of Phygele, Acusilaus of Argos, Charon of Lampsacus, Melesagoras of Calchedon and (of a somewhat later date) Hellanicus of Lesbos, Damastes of Sigeum, Xenomedes of Ceos, Xanthus of Lydia (De Thuc. ).





Receiving Herodotus

the grand sweep of Herodotus, but one war, whose development he examines in detail (De Thuc. ). It is not important for our purposes whether Dionysius’ account is an accurate summary of the evolution of ancient historiography; rather its significance is the insight it provides into a prominent ancient critical perspective on Herodotus’ crucial and distinctive place within the genre. It is notable that for Dionysius Herodotus is also a stylistic innovator and markedly superior to his predecessors in terms of literary quality (παρεσκεύασε τῇ κρατίστῃ ποιήσει τὴν πεζὴν φράσιν ὁμοίαν γενέσθαι πειθοῦς τε καὶ χαρίτων καὶ τῆς εἰς ἄκρον ἡκούσης ἡδονῆς ἕνεκα, ‘[H]e made his prose style alike to the most powerful poetry on account of its persuasiveness, charms and most pleasant effect’, De Thuc. ). Although Dionysius’ account is the fullest ancient critical description of the development of Greek historiography, there are further signs that ancient readers and critics more widely viewed Herodotus as one of the most pre-eminent historians, one who played a pivotal role in the evolution of the genre. Lucian, whose essay on How to Write History is one of the few other extensive ancient descriptions of historiography to survive, describes Thucydides, in his view (as for Dionysius, De Thuc. ) the acme of historians, as reaching this position by responding to Herodotus (Hist. Conscr. ), while Herodotus features alongside Thucydides and Xenophon as shorthand for the genre as a whole, with reference to their imitators in Lucian’s day (οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐχ ἱστορίαν συγγράφει, μᾶλλον δὲ Θουκυδίδαι καὶ Ἡρόδοτοι καὶ Ξενοφῶντες ἡμῖν ἅπαντες, ‘No one is not writing history, rather all are Thucydideses, Herodotuses, Xenophons’, 

 





Cf. the rather different (and influential) analysis of Jacoby (e.g. ), who views local history as a post-Herodotean development. On Jacoby’s analysis see Gozzoli / and Toye , who compare it with Dionysius’ schema. See also the criticisms of Jacoby’s analysis in Fowler : – and pp. – below. Cf. also καὶ τῇ λέξει προσαπέδωκε τὰς παραλειφθείσας ὑπὸ τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ συγγραφέων ἀρετάς (‘[H]e also provided his style with all the virtues left aside by earlier writers’, De Thuc. ). It is possible (as Marincola :  suggests, following Jacoby, e.g. : , ) that Dionysius’ view of Herodotus’ crucial role in the transformation of historiography derives at least in part from Peripatetic analyses of the genre such as Theophrastus’ On History (not extant). See, however, Gozzoli /: – for reservations about the possible Theophrastean origins of Dionysius’ view. There is much to be learnt about ancient historiography, of course, from Polybius’ polemical descriptions of other historians, especially in book , but these are not directly relevant to the argument here. Herodotus, notoriously, is not mentioned by Polybius: nevertheless, his influence can still be traced there, as argued with reference to the place of geography by Clarke : – and McGing . Cf. ὁ δ᾽ οὖν Θουκυδίδης εὖ μάλα τοῦτ᾽ ἐνομοθέτησε καὶ διέκρινεν ἀρετὴν καὶ κακίαν συγγραφικήν (‘Thucydides laid down this law extremely well and distinguished good and bad in history-writing’, Hist. Conscr. ).

The Herodotean Thought-World



Hist. Conscr. ) and alongside Thucydides as one of ‘the best of historians’ (οἱ ἄριστοι τῶν συγγραφέων, Hist. Conscr. ). It is in this context that we should view the description of Herodotus by Cicero as the pater historiae (Leg. .): Herodotus (from this perspective) is not the first historian, nor indeed their summit, but he is absolutely crucial in determining the character and form of the genre of historiography: in Cicero’s De Oratore he is ‘the first to embellish this genre’ (princeps genus hoc ornavit, De Orat. .), again setting the scene for Thucydides to perfect it: post illum Thucydides omnis dicendi artificio mea sententia facile vicit (‘following him [sc. Herodotus] Thucydides has in my view easily surpassed all in the skilfulness of his expression’, De Orat. .). History, one might say, has two Homers: the ancient critical perspective, exemplified by (but not restricted to) Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on Herodotus’ place and contribution to the development of historiography allows us to see more clearly why Herodotus in particular represents for Apollonius the ‘modello-codice’ of historiography. It is Herodotus who is portrayed as having the crucial, transformative effect on the genre as a whole, especially through his Panhellenic, transcontinental perspective (as opposed to a more local focus on particular peoples or cities), and through the skill and artistry of his writing. Both of these aspects, I suggest, are also important for the use of Herodotus by Apollonius, as are further elements which we will explore in the next section, notably an association of Herodotus with the writing of history about the more distant past (as opposed to contemporary events) and with ethnographic descriptions of non-Greek peoples, both of which serve to differentiate him from History’s other Homer, Thucydides.

The Herodotean Thought-World The importance from the perspective of later periods of Herodotus as a historian extended even beyond his influence on Thucydides or the genre 



 

Cf. (again of contemporary imitators of classical historians): ὅμοιος αὐτὸς ἐκείνῳ, παρ᾽ ὅσον ὁ μὲν Θουκυδίδῃ, οὗτος δὲ Ἡροδότῳ εὖ μάλα ἐῴκει (‘This one is like that previous one, though as much as he resembles Thucydides, this one is very like Herodotus’, Hist. Conscr. ). Cicero also singles out Herodotus’ skill and the pleasure to be derived from reading him: tanta est eloquentia, ut me quidem, quantum ego Graece scripta intellegere possum, magno opere delectet (‘so great is his eloquence that it charms me greatly, as far as I can understand things written in Greek’, De Orat. .). Both could be portrayed explicitly in that role: Herodotus so features in the Salmacis inscription (see pp. – above), while Thucydides is Homer’s equivalent ἐν ἱστορίᾳ at [Longinus] de subl. .. On ancient characterisations of Herodotus’ style see Priestley : –.



Receiving Herodotus

of historiography more broadly. Some forty years ago Oswyn Murray definitively established the importance of Herodotus for the intellectual horizons of the Hellenistic world in general (not just its historiography). Considering the role of Herodotus within ‘Hellenistic culture’ will allow us to articulate more precisely the importance he held for Apollonius and the uses to which he was put in the Argonautica. Herodotus was widely read in the Hellenistic period: he is well represented in papyrus fragments, among which we can now add a further scholarly commentary (on Hdt. .–) to ‘the most remarkable of the Herodotean papyri’, a commentary apparently written by no less a figure than Aristarchus and making Herodotus the first prose writer known to have been the subject of a commentary. But the force of Murray’s argument lies away from these signs of general interest (to which he adds various reminiscences in a variety of poetic texts); his focus is, rather, on the ways in which ‘the early Hellenistic writers saw the world through Herodotean eyes’. Herodotus was fundamental to the ways in which the Hellenistic period regarded the world: the account of Nearchus (FGrH ) of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, for example, looks in its description of India both to Herodotus’ short account of India (Hdt. .–) and to the extended Egyptian logos in book , so that Nearchus claims (Fa, b) to have seen the skins of Herodotus’ famous ‘gold-digging ants’ (Hdt. ..), but not to have seen the creatures themselves, and generalises from Herodotus’ account of the creation of the bulk of Egypt through the deposits of the Nile (Hdt. .) to other similar rivers and surrounding territories (F). Nearchus’ description of the tiger (F) is also reminiscent of Herodotus’ methodology: he cannot claim to have seen

  

 

 

Murray . For useful surveys of Hellenistic historiography see Connor : –, Marincola : –, Whitmarsh : –. Cf. the titles of both Murray  and Priestley : ‘Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture’. West  provides a recent survey of the Herodotus papyri, to extend the picture presented by Murray : – (Herodotus is well represented, though not as well as Thucydides; there is no certainly Ptolemaic papyrus of Herodotus, though no historian features heavily in the Ptolemaic period).  P. Oxy.  (MP .). West : . See P.Amherst  (Pack ) and Paap : – for Aristarchus’ commentary (though see also West : –, who suggests that the attribution to Aristarchus may be pseudepigraphic). See further on the commentary most recently Priestley : –. In paying scholarly attention to Herodotus, Aristarchus was following the example of his great predecessor Aristophanes of Byzantium, who made use of Herodotus in his Lexeis (Pfeiffer : , Murray : ).  Murray : . Murray : , Priestley : . Pearson : –, Murray : .

The Herodotean Thought-World



the creature itself, but has seen its skin, and reports the stories told of its abilities by the Indians. The importance of Herodotus for shaping the conception of the world of the contemporaries of Alexander (including Nearchus) has been suggested to go still further by Vasunia, who sees Herodotus, especially the Egyptian logos, as a key text in determining how Greeks (including Macedonians) saw other peoples in the fourth century, thus contributing to some degree to the imperial campaigns of Alexander. Whatever one makes of the view that empire may have followed art in this case, it is clear that in the late fourth century and in the early third century, particular Herodotean views of the peoples around the Mediterranean and their nomoi were important reference-points, as was the general approach of Herodotus to describing the characteristics of these different ethnic groups. Such engagement with Herodotus might, of course, take the form of disagreement. This is perhaps clearest in Hecataeus of Abdera (FGrH ), who dissents from several elements of Herodotus’ account of Egypt and from whom the attitude to Herodotus expressed by Diodorus in book  is widely supposed to have been taken over. Diodorus characterises his own enterprise as fundamentally different from Herodotus’ interest in wonders and attractive stories: ὅσα μὲν οὖν Ἡρόδοτος καί τινες τῶν τὰς Αἰγυπτίων πράξεις συνταξαμένων ἐσχεδιάκασιν, ἑκουσίως προκρίναντες τῆς ἀληθείας τὸ παραδοξολογεῖν καὶ μύθους πλάττειν ψυχαγωγίας ἕνεκα, παρήσομεν, αὐτὰ δὲ τὰ παρὰ τοῖς ἱερεῦσι τοῖς κατ᾽ Αἴγυπτον ἐν ταῖς ἀναγραφαῖς γεγραμμένα φιλοτίμως ἐξητακότες ἐκθησόμεθα. (D.S. ..) Now as for the stories invented by Herodotus and certain writers on Egyptian affairs, who deliberately preferred to the truth the telling of marvellous tales and the invention of myths for the delectation of their readers, these we shall omit, and we shall set forth only what appears in the written records of the priests of Egypt and has passed our careful scrutiny. (trans. Oldfather)   

See Priestley :  n. . Pearson : – compares the similar use of opsis and historiē in Herodotus’ account of the phoenix (Hdt. ..).  See Vasunia : –. See Vasunia : , . See Murray : , : , Stephens : – with n. . Burton : – surveys the views of a number of scholars and is more cautious about the Hecataean character of some of Diodorus book . See also now Muntz  for a revision of the traditional view attributing Diodorus book  largely to Hecataeus, and Sacks , Gruen : ,  on Diodorus not being a slavish copier of his sources, including Hecataeus. Priestley : – also acknowledges the problem of assuming the Egyptian material in Diodorus is straightforwardly copied from Hecataeus.



Receiving Herodotus

Nevertheless, despite this dismissive statement, much in Hecataeus’ account of Egypt was clearly taken from Herodotus, and Hecataeus’ basic approach to writing an ethnography of the Egyptians takes Herodotus as a principal model, to the extent that even the corrections of Herodotus show that the Histories is an indispensable part of formulating the subject matter of Hecataeus’ Egyptian ethnography. Herodotus’ Egyptian logos is important for Apollonius also, as one might expect, and it has received the lion’s share of the scholarly attention paid in recent years to the relationship between Herodotus and the major poetic texts of the Hellenistic period (though, as we shall see, Apollonius’ engagement with Herodotus ranges far beyond book  of the Histories). Herodotus’ importance as a frame of reference not only for ethnographic description but also description of the remoter past is in fact clear before the Hellenistic period, which provides a further justification for this study’s concentration on Herodotus, in that it underlines why Herodotus played a similar role later for Apollonius. In Thucydides it is different aspects of Herodotus’ distinctive historiographical manner which are adopted when dealing with ‘Herodotean’ subject matter, as when describing the extent of the kingdom of the Thracian Odrysians by reference to the distances which can be travelled by a Herodotean ἀνὴρ εὔζωνος (‘lightly equipped man’), or employing more frequent markers of the historiographical narrator’s voice (such as ‘I suppose’ or ‘no doubt’) than is normal in Thucydides and strongly reminiscent of Herodotus, in the archaiologiai in Thuc.  and . As Fowler has suggested, this strongly points to Herodotus’ manner and methods as being those deemed ‘the appropriate way to determine the truth about the remoter past’. When Thucydides turns his attention to an episode from this more distant past,    



 

See Murray : , Hornblower : , Priestley : –, –. See most recently Priestley : – for the Herodotean shadow in which Hecataeus is working, e.g. in his description of Colchis and its Egyptian-like nomoi (BNJ  F, .). See Marincola : –, on post-Herodotean non-contemporary history and its development from Herodotus. In general on the relationship of Thucydides to Herodotus see Pelling , Hornblower : –, : , Marincola : – with n.  and most recently the articles in Foster & Lateiner (eds.) a, including Foster & Lateiner b and Stadter . Thuc. .. See Hornblower  ad loc., : . The phrase appears in Hdt. at .. (part of the description of the boundary of the Persian and Lydian empires), .. (the proximity of the Scythians to the Persians), .. (part of analogical reasoning on the course of the Nile based on the Ister). See Fowler :  with nn.  and , where he collects examples of Herodotean phrases such as ἔτι καὶ νῦν, δοκεῖ μοι, etc., appeals to εἰκός, instances of alternative versions or first inventors, etc. Fowler : .

The Herodotean Thought-World



as in his account of Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Thuc. .–), his treatment becomes distinctly Herodotean. The pattern found in Thucydides continues in later historiography: Herodotus determines the frame of reference for thinking about the more distant past in historical terms and for articulating an ethnographic interest in other places and their peoples, both of which are crucial for Apollonius’ epic about an expedition from the long-past heroic age to the far shore of the Black Sea. Herodotus, then, becomes at a very early date the ‘modello-codice’ for historiography focused on the remoter past as well as for ethnographic history. Later historiographers (and, I argue, poets such as Apollonius) do not simply cite, allude to or engage with particular passages from the Histories (though they do this too): Herodotus is also the representative of these types of historiography in general. Herodotus’ manner and methodology, as well as his typical subject matter, become fundamental in defining the possibilities or parameters of ethnography and history of the distant past, rather as Homer stands for Virgil for epic poetry as a genre as well as providing the reference-point for several key passages. When Thucydides adopts a Herodotean phrase (such as the ἀνὴρ εὔζωνος of Thuc. .) what he is engaging with is Herodotus as the representative of a type of historiography, a complex code built of different Herodotean stylistic, narrative and historiographical topoi, rather than simply with particular instances of Herodotus’ use of the phrase. The employment of an element of the code prompts readers to think of Thucydides as looking to Herodotus as the ‘modello-codice’ for such descriptions of non-Greek peoples and their domains, rather than depending on readers to recall a specific occurrence in Herodotus. Herodotus’ place in the development of some key elements in historiographical discourse forms another aspect of his status as the ‘modello-codice’ for particular types of historiography. As Fowler has pointed out, we do not find impersonal λέγεται (‘it is said’) used to report sources in the considerable verbatim fragments we have of Herodotus’ predecessors, such as Hecataeus of Miletus, Acusilaus, and Pherecydes, but after Herodotus ‘λέγεται is routinely employed in historiography and mythography’. 

  

See Hornblower :  and : –, where he picks out (among a variety of ‘Herodotean’ characteristics) the ‘very detailed, personal, and almost intimate’ nature of some of Thucydides’ account. See Murray : – on historians such as Megasthenes, Berossus, Manetho, Hieronymus of Cardia, and Timaeus, and cf. now Priestley : –. See on the term ‘modello-codice’ and the attendant methodology pp. – above. Fowler : .



Receiving Herodotus

(It is with the Herodotean character of such features of historiographical discourse that I begin my exploration in Chapter  of the ways in which Herodotus plays the role of historiographical ‘modello-codice’ for Apollonius.) Apollonius was writing epic in a period in which Herodotus had profoundly influenced the character and kinds of historiography being written and the wider intellectual horizons of the age, and had come to represent the key model for particular types of historiographical writing, especially non-contemporary history and ethnography. In this context, Apollonius’ use of Herodotus as his historiographical ‘modello-codice’ makes good sense (in particular when compared with Thucydides as a historiographical model for contemporary, political history), since his epic concerns a period so distant in the past as to precede even the Homeric poems, and displays a keen interest in the customs and practices of a range of peoples, spread across the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

Panhellenic and Local Perspectives One aspect of post-Herodotean historiography long associated with Herodotus’ influence is the prominence of a pronounced interest in ‘local’ communities and peoples as the subject of individual histories, ranging from works focusing on individual poleis, such as the local historians of Athens (the ‘Atthidographers’), to those with a wider regional focus (e.g. Timaeus’ ᾽Ιταλικὰ καὶ Σικελικά) and works about non-Greek peoples or states (such as the works on Egypt by Manetho and Babylon by Berossus). The idea that Herodotus plays a particular role in the flourishing of these kinds of history goes back to Jacoby, but it remains widespread and influential, though in recent years there have been doubts raised about Jacoby’s schematic account of the development of distinct types of Greek historiography and his dating of particular historians. What is clear, however, is that histories with a local or regional focus were a common form in the Hellenistic period, and as such likely to       

See pp. – below. See Jacoby : – for Herodotus’ influence on such ‘local’ history, which he terms ‘Horographie’. On whom see Jacoby , Harding , , Clarke : –. An alternative name for his Histories: see BNJ  T with Champion ad loc. FGrH  and . See on their relationship to Herodotus Murray : –, Priestley : – and in general on these historians Dillery , Moyer .  Cf. e.g. Jacoby : –, : . Cf. the account of Fornara : –. See, e.g., Fowler , esp. –, Marincola .

Panhellenic and Local Perspectives



have been familiar as a type to Apollonius’ readers: there are over  historians listed as historians of individual states by Jacoby (FGrH –), a great many of whom are Hellenistic in date. These historians include such figures as Nymphis of Heraclea (FGrH ), a third-century historian (and statesman) of his city on the Black Sea, and Agias and Dercylus (FGrH ), two figures usually paired in references to their work on Argos and probably writing in the late fourth or early third century. Both Nymphis and Agias and Dercylus were used by the Hellenistic poets: the scholia to Apollonius repeatedly cite Nymphis in relation to details of the geography, history, myth and heroic genealogy related to the Black Sea coast (near Heraclea) along which the Argonauts travel, while Callimachus used Agias and Dercylus as a source in the Aetia (e.g. for the genealogy of the Parian Graces) and probably also for details of Argive geography and ritual in the Hymn to Athena, which is set in Argos. These examples suggest that local historians of this type were concerned (at least in part) with particular details of local geography and mythology, and with the origins and character of local customs, rituals, names, etc. It is the information on these aspects, of course, which will have made them useful to the Hellenistic poets. A similar (and probably related) phenomenon which we should also consider is that of ‘local’ genealogical or regional epic in the Hellenistic period, concerned with narrating such things as mythic origins, heroic genealogies, early history, and foundation-stories connected with particular locations around the Mediterranean. Examples of this kind include the work of Rhianus of Bene on Crete (FGrH ), who wrote a number of such works, including an Achaïca, an Eliaca and a Thessalica, which were probably considerable in length, since the Thessalica had at least sixteen  

   



See Harding : . See in general Clarke : –, –, Priestley : – on the different kinds of local historian in the Hellenistic period and their geographical spread through the Greek world. Whitmarsh :  counts at least eighty-five titles for local histories which are securely Hellenistic in date. FGrH . Their relationship is unclear: see BNJ  ‘Biographical Essay’, Bulloch b: –. See BNJ  ‘Biographical Essay’. Callimachus lived into the s and since he made use of these historians he provides a terminus ante quem at least for the later of the pair (probably Dercylus). E.g. BNJ  F, , a, , , , , , , . N.b. BNJ  T (schol. ad A.R. .–A): Νύμφις . . . παρ’ οὗ Απολλώνιος ἔοικε ταῦτα μεταφέρειν. See Aetia fr. a Harder (with Harder : –), BNJ  F: τὴν δ’ ἱστορίαν ἔλαβεν π̣[αρ’ Αγίου] καὶ Δερκύλου. Cf. also BNJ  F (Callimachus using Agias and Dercylus on Argive waterrituals, cf. Aetia frr. – Pf.), Fb (Callimachus taking from Agias and Dercylus the story of Argives killing dogs during the month Arneios, Aetia fr. a Harder). See Bulloch b: –.



Receiving Herodotus

books according to Stephanus of Byzantium (FGrH  F). Rhianus also wrote a Messeniaca (in at least six books), which is sometimes distinguished from the ethno-geographical poems because its subject is historical, the second Messenian War, but there was probably little difference between them. The fragments of these local epics preserve a wide range of information on the heroic origins of regional or ethnic names from the areas on which they focus (e.g. F on the name of ‘Amythonia’ in Elis deriving from Amythaon, a son of Cretheus), as well as several details on local or regional geography (here too it is mainly names which are preserved). The Messeniaca clearly narrated the progress of the war and Aristomenes’ role within it, and was used (and criticised) by Pausanias. This type of poetry persisted through the Hellenistic period: there are titles suggestive of the ethno-geographical epic attributed to a Nicander (perhaps the earlier poet of the third century, rather than the author of the Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, who was perhaps his grandson) such as Aetolica, Oetaïca, and Thebaïca, and it seems that the type was not confined to Greek communities, as demonstrated by the poets Theodotus (FGrH ) and Philo (FGrH ), who wrote on Jewish subjects. Apollonius himself wrote several poems on the foundations of particular cities, though these ktisis-poems seem to have been considerably shorter than the multi-book epics of Rhianus. There are attributed to Apollonius foundation-poems (in hexameters) on the Egyptian cities of Alexandria (CA fr. ) and Naucratis (CA frr. –), two cities in Asia Minor (Caunus in Caria, CA fr. , and Cnidus in south-west Asia Minor, CA fr. ), and the island of Rhodes (CA frr. –). There are also some Apollonian

          

The Achaïca contained at least four books (BNJ  F), the Eliaca at least three (BNJ  F).  BNJ  F. E.g. Bertelli’s commentary on BNJ  F. See Cameron : –. Cf. F, , a. Several ethnic names are also preserved without etymologies: cf. e.g. F, , a, b, , , , .  Cf. e.g. F, , , , , , , , , , , , , , . See esp. F, , . Paus. ..– (BNJ  F). See Cameron : –, Magnelli : – (the latter with further bibliography on the debate about the number and date of Nicander(s)). BNJ – F– (Aetolica), F (Thebaïca), F– (Oetaïca). See Cameron : . See SH – (Theodotus), SH – (Philo). Their date is uncertain, but they probably wrote in the second or first centuries . See in general on Apollonius’ ktisis-poems Krevans  and Sistakou . There is little strong evidence to support the attribution of an anonymous Lesbou ktisis (CA fr. ) to Apollonius: see Sistakou :  (who calls the attribution ‘largely speculative’ and summarises the debate over its authorship in n. ).

Panhellenic and Local Perspectives



fragments of a choliambic poem on one Canobus (CA frr. –), the helmsman of Menelaus, whose death in Egypt led to the naming of the port of Canopus after him. The fragments of these poems suggest interests similar to those we have observed in Rhianus’ local poems, such as geographical place names deriving from the heroic age (Heracles’ cooling off his sweat leading to the naming of Psyktrios (‘Cooling’) in Thrace, CA fr. ), and to the aetiological material in the Argonautica or Callimachus’ Aetia (e.g. CA fr.  on the origin of fireless sacrifices on Rhodes). It is tempting to relate the broad interests in local customs and rituals, mythic prehistory and the origins of various peoples and cities, which can be found in both Hellenistic prose and verse of the kinds we have examined above, to the cultural and political ambitions of particular localities, attempting to establish themselves in the Hellenistic period by claiming for themselves a distinguished ancestry or a distinctive role in Greek history. There is evidence that cities themselves valued highly and promoted the writing of their own local histories, and it seems likely that poems (such as those of Rhianus) on particular localities were at least in some cases commissioned by individuals or groups connected with those areas. It is also clear that the local poetry and history of the Hellenistic period has connections to the content and interests of poems such as the Argonautica (and Callimachus’ Aetia), not least in the prominence of aetiology and etymology reaching back into the heroic age to explain features of the contemporary Hellenistic world. However, there is a crucial 







The Canobus is attributed to Apollonius by Stephanus of Byzantium (s.vv. Κόρινθος, χώρα), though J.-M. Jacques – has ascribed it to Apollodorus Iologus (see Lloyd-Jones, SSH ad A.R. CA frr. –). Sistakou : – compares the questions of Callimachus on Parian, Anaphean and Lindian ritual at frr.  and .– Pf. We might also compare the Argonautic origin of Phrygian worship of Rhea with wheel and drum at A.R. .–. See further on Apollonian aetiology in the Argonautica pp. – below. See, e.g., Clarke : –, Whitmarsh : –. This is close to the view of Jacoby :  on the impetus to local history coming from the desire of local communities to establish their place in Greek history, especially if this was marginalised by ‘Great Historiography’ such as the Histories of Herodotus. As Clarke : , – points out, a sense of local identity and community would also have been useful in various intra-polis contexts. See, e.g. Clarke : – on IG  ()  (FGrH  T), an inscription of the second century  commemorating the dedication of a statue of one Leon of Samos, who wrote on Samian history, and in general on honorific inscriptions for writers of history see Chaniotis : –. In addition to native historians of particular communities, such as Leon, there existed itinerant historians, often writing in verse, who composed histories about cities which were not their own: see Clarke : –. These travelling poet-historians included the striking example of Aristodama of Smyrna from the third century  (IG  () ; FGrH  F) who told of ‘the ethnos of the Aetolians and the forebears of the people’ (περί τε τοῦ ἔθνευς τῶν Αἰτωλῶ[ν καὶ τ]ῶμ προγόνων τοῦ δάμου). See also Priestley : –.



Receiving Herodotus

difference in focus between the Argonautica and the types of material we have been considering in this section (including Apollonius’ own ktisispoetry), one shared with Herodotus. Herodotus’ focus, when compared with that found in local history (both the Hellenistic historians and their classical antecedents), is markedly wider, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus saw: Herodotus’ interest in local customs and rituals is also profound, but it is integrated into a wider narrative of transcontinental conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks (indeed, the particular habits, traditions and beliefs of certain peoples explain aspects of the development of that conflict or its background, such as the nomadic Scythians’ ability to resist Darius). Even if Katherine Clarke is right to see local historiography as implying audiences beyond the polis, the focus in the fragments of local historiography is overwhelmingly on the particular community whose history is being related; something similar is true when one turns to the mythic prehistory found in poetry narrating the foundations or origins of peoples or regions. This is not to say that local traditions preserved no awareness of other communities or connections with the wider Greek or Mediterranean world: Apollonius’ Founding of Cnidus mentions a place in Thrace (a considerable distance from the city whose foundation is being narrated) and its connections with the Panhellenic figure of Heracles (CA fr. ). Nevertheless, local historiography was precisely ‘local’ and privileged the individual community over the wider world (even if part of its aim was the establishment or re-establishment of that community within the Greek world). Apollonius’ focus in the Argonautica has more in common with Herodotus than it does with local historiography or poetry about particular cities in this crucial respect: the Argonautica is a story of contact and conflict between Greeks (as a collective group, not restricted to one particular polis or region) and  





See Hdt. .– and pp. – below. Cf. e.g. Clarke : –, –, –, –. Tober  argues forcefully, however, for the esoteric and provincial character of local historiography, where Greece as an entity hardly ever features, and which are thick with markedly local detail. Nevertheless, as Tober points out, some formal features common to local historiography, such as eschewing local dialects and strong firstperson identification with the city or its inhabitants, are consistent with the possibility of broader audiences, though Tober suggests this is related to the roots of local historiography in the ethnography of non-Greek peoples, making it a kind of ‘self-ethnography’, adopting the same external perspective when describing local Greek communities. Cf. e.g. Clarke : – on the Lindian temple chronicle’s explicit connection to the wider oikoumene through the list of votives for the goddess given by donors from far beyond Lindos. See in general on the chronicle Higbie . On the Panhellenic nature of the Argonautic expedition and the crew of the Argo and the emphasis in the poem on ‘Hellas’ as an entity, see pp. – below.

Panhellenic and Local Perspectives



non-Greeks, narrating the progress of a Panhellenic expedition into and back from non-Greek territory, and encompassing geographical, ethnographic and aetiological material on a wide range of peoples and places. The Argonautica is not a foundation-story for any particular city or kingdom: with regard to ethno-geographical epic or ktisis-poetry it holds a position analogous to that Dionysius sees for Herodotus as compared with local historians. The material divided up by city and published separately in such work is combined into a whole in the Argonautica, producing a poem with a much broader, Panhellenic perspective. Some scholars, however, have assimilated the Argonautica more closely with some aspects of ktisis-poetry. For example, although the range of places included in the Argonautica is very broad, from Thessaly through the Aegean (including then non-Greek spaces such as Lemnos), the Propontis and along the Black Sea coast to Colchis, then back down the Ister to the Adriatic, then down the Eridanus to the western Mediterranean, across it to Libya and then back to Greece, Susan Stephens has argued that the epic is centred on Alexandria, and forms a ‘conceptual map’ for the city, part of the construction of ‘a myth-historical past unique to the Ptolemies’. Her argument depends largely on the length and prominence of the sojourn of the Argonauts in Libya in book  and the encounter with the god Triton, who gives the Argonaut Euphemus a clod of Libyan earth as a guest-gift (A.R. .–), which (as the clod itself reveals to Euphemus in a dream, A.R. .–) is to be the future home of Euphemus’ descendants, as Jason confirms on hearing the dream (A.R. .–). This story is clearly adapted from the foundation-stories of Cyrene found in Pindar, Pythian  and Herodotus ., and Stephens argues that it forms a charter-myth authorising Greek presence in North Africa more generally: ‘Triton grants their ancestors the North African littoral’, especially because Libya could be taken to include the whole of   

  

Which is not to claim that it does not engage with such work or exploit it in the poem. For Nelis :  it is ‘the ultimate ktisis’ for Greek presence in North Africa. See also Mori a: –, –. Cf. Stephens : , who concedes that the ‘argument of this paper is, paradoxically, that despite its lack of a local focus, the Argonautica is a poem about place, in which the seemingly disparate narrative patterns, solar journey, katabasis, colonization, and the movement from chaos to order form a logical nexus for one place – Ptolemaic Alexandria’. Stephens : –; the quotation is from . Cf. also Stephens : – for the Argonautica as part of the mythological claim legitimising Alexandria and Greek claims to Egypt. See on these foundation-stories Malkin : –, , Giangiulio , Calame : –, –. Stephens : . Triton, however, does not grant them Libya (however broadly or narrowly construed), but Thera, as the Argonautica makes absolutely explicit.



Receiving Herodotus

North Africa from Carthage to the Nile and the Argonautica notably does not mention Cyrene itself. The presence within the Argonautica of the first part of the foundationstory of Cyrene, however, only serves to underline the differences between the epic and a ktisis-poem. The emphasis in the Argonautica is in fact strongly on the island of Thera: it is this island which the clod of Libyan earth will become (ἀλλά με Νηρῆος παρακάτθεο παρθενικῇσιν | ἂμ πέλαγος ναίειν Ανάφης σχεδόν. εἶμι δ’ ἐς αὐγὰς | ἠελίου μετόπισθε, τεοῖς νεπόδεσσιν ἑτοίμη, .–), and Thera with which the story of the clod in the epic ends, probably with a direct apostrophe of Theras, whence came the island’s name: τῆς δ’ ἔκτοθι νῆσος ἀέρθη Καλλίστη, παίδων ἱερὴ τροφὸς Εὐφήμοιο. οἳ πρὶν μέν ποτε δὴ Σιντηίδα Λῆμνον ἔναιον, Λήμνου τ’ ἐξελαθέντες ὑπ’ ἀνδράσι Τυρσηνοῖσιν Σπάρτην εἰσαφίκανον ἐφέστιοι. ἐκ δὲ λιπόντας Σπάρτην Αὐτεσίωνος ἐὺς πάις ἤγαγε Θήρας Καλλίστην ἐπὶ νῆσον, ἀμείψατο δ’ οὔνομα, Θήρα, ἐκ σέθεν. ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν μετόπιν γένετ’ Εὐφήμοιο.

(A.R. . )

From this arose an island, Kalliste, the sacred nurse of the children of Euphemus, who once lived on Sintian Lemnos, but driven from Lemnos by Tyrrhenian men, arrived at Sparta as suppliants. Departing from Sparta Autesion’s noble son, Theras, led them to the island of Kalliste, and its name was changed, Theras, to one from yours. But these things happened a long time after Euphemus.

Readers of the Argonautica will have known the sequel, of course, but it is striking (and important) that the foundation-story breaks off with Thera, rather than continuing to Cyrene. I argue below that this is connected with the problematising of mythological exemplars for contemporary figures and polities in the Hellenistic period, but the important thing to note from the point of view of this chapter is how different a strategy of suggesting or hinting at the foundation-story of Cyrene (and beyond that, the legitimising of different, unmentioned North African Greek cities such  

  

See Stephens : , –, : . ‘Entrust me to Nereus’ daughters to dwell in the sea close by Anaphe: I will come into the light of the sun in later times, ready for your descendants’. The clod which will be Thera (near Anaphe) itself delivers the prophecy about its future to Euphemus. See Fränkel  ad loc., Vian  ad loc., Hunter : – on adopting the apostrophe here, based on the paraphrase in the scholia. See Stephens : , Hunter : –.  On the oddness of this move by Apollonius, see Köhnken : . See esp. pp. –.

Conclusion



as Alexandria) would be from the explicit connections made between particular places and mythological origins which will have been found in local histories, epics or ktisis-poems (or, for that matter, the victory odes of Pindar, or the connections between the aetion and what it explains in Callimachus’Aetia). The focus of the Argonautica is not narrowly bound by concentration on (or justification of ) any one place (including Cyrene or Alexandria); rather the perspective is much more wide-ranging, and reminiscent of that of Herodotus.

Conclusion The Hellenistic Herodotus who emerges from the discussion above is one marked out as one of the pre-eminent exemplars of the genre, associated with some aspects of common types of historiography in the period, such as local histories about individual poleis (and their analogues in verse), but also sharply distinct from them in his broader narrative with its wider perspective on events across Europe, Asia and Africa. His contribution to history as a genre is recognised (in theory or through practice) as to have combined different local perspectives into this greater narrative, and to have provided a model for tackling the history of substantially earlier periods, especially when allied to extensive descriptions of the customs and habits of different peoples. The parallels with Apollonius should now be clear, as should the attractions the Histories must have had for Apollonius when composing his own great narrative of the meeting of Greek and non-Greek across the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Crucial questions have also been raised about how the Argonautica employs aetiology to connect the contemporary Hellenistic present with the mythic past (and to complicate those connections), and what consequences such connections might have for understanding the poem’s relationship to its the wider political context. We will return to these topics in subsequent chapters.  

Cf. Stephens : –, who connects the lack of explicit focus on Alexandria with uncertainty about its future. See pp. – below.

 

Creating Authorities

The Historiographical Mode Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι’ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι. (Hdt. . prol.) This is the setting forth of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that what has happened among men does not become obliterated by time, nor the great and wondrous deeds performed by both Greeks and barbar ians go without glory, and in particular the reason for which they went to war with one another.

The first sentence of Herodotus’ Histories proclaims itself to us, as it did to Hellenistic readers such as Apollonius, to be the ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις (‘setting forth of the inquiry’) of Herodotus of Halicarnassus himself. His purpose is the preservation of the kleos of the achievements of Greeks and nonGreeks, and the establishment of the αἰτίη (‘cause’ or ‘reason’) of their conflict. Both the investigation into origins and the maintenance of glory recall (of course) the opening of the Iliad, which asks the Muse which of the gods set Achilles and Agamemnon at odds (τίς τ’ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι; Il. .). But the presentation of the Histories as the product of personal research or inquiry (ἱστορίη) implies not only very different sources for the narrative which is to follow from that found in the 

  

On this description of Herodotus’ work, see Erbse , Pelliccia : –, Thomas : –. See in general on Herodotus’ proem Krischer , Bakker , Wecowski , Dewald : –. For the possibility that Herodotus described himself as ‘of Thurii’ rather than ‘of Halicarnassus’ see Asheri et al. : –. For ἱστορίη as research see Asheri et al. : . See Nagy , Chiasson : – on Herodotus’ self-presentation as a preserver of kleos here. For a penetrating investigation into the affinities between the Herodotean proem and the Homeric poems see Nagy , : ch. .



The Historiographical Mode



Homeric poems (where the Muse is herself asked to ‘sing’ (ἄειδε, Il. .) or ‘tell’ (ἔννεπε, εἰπέ, Od. ., ) the story) but also a very different attitude to those sources. Herodotus employs a sharp critical intelligence to the collection, assessment and presentation of his sources at the beginning of his work: he reports first the views of the Persian logioi (‘chroniclers’, Hdt. .), that is of a presumably authoritative group, carefully notes where different ethnic groups disagree (the Persian account of how Io reached Egypt is not shared by the Greeks, Hdt. ., or the Phoenicians, Hdt. .), and then restricts his own account to knowledge of which he can be certain: ταῦτα μέν νυν Πέρσαι τε καὶ Φοίνικες λέγουσι· ἐγὼ δὲ περὶ μὲν τούτων οὐκ ἔρχομαι ἐρέων ὡς οὕτως ἢ ἄλλως κως ταῦτα ἐγένετο, τὸν δὲ οἶδα αὐτὸς πρῶτον ὑπάρξαντα ἀδίκων ἔργων ἐς τοὺς Ἕλληνας, τοῦτον σημήνας προβήσομαι ἐς τὸ πρόσω τοῦ λόγου . . . (Hdt. ..) This is what the Persians and the Phoenicians say: but I, on the other hand, will not say that these things happened in this way or another, rather I will indicate the man whom I know myself to have first begun to wrong the Greeks, and then I will proceed to the remainder of my account . . .

Herodotus thus focuses attention on his own critical faculties and the central role they play in the creation of an authoritative narrative from the material he has himself gathered. Herodotus’ intelligence and judgement are vital if the problems of unreliable or conflicting sources are to be overcome (although Herodotus also shows an acute awareness that sometimes sources present irreducible problems). This too is very different from the Homeric epics, where the problem of sources never arises, since the Muses are presented as having complete omniscience on which the narrator relies absolutely. The Homeric narrator never has to establish his own authority as a collector or judge of sources since the Muses’ stories do not 

 

For the differences from Homer marked by Herodotus’ use of his own role in his historical enquiry see (e.g.) Krischer : , Romm : –, Goldhill : , Chiasson : –. On Herodotus carrying out his own individual research (e.g. through travel and autopsy) see Asheri et al. : –. The issue of the identity and veracity of Herodotus’ sources (and claims to autopsy) lies outside the scope of this book. Boedeker  is a useful introduction to the debate on the reliability of Herodotus’ source citations (sceptical positions on their trustworthiness include Fehling , defences of their reliability Pritchett ). See also Fowler : – and n.  below. On the resemblances between the arrangement of Herodotus’ proem and a poetic or rhetorical priamel see Pelliccia : –, Chiasson : –. See Il. .– and pp. – below. The reliance on the Muse for the content of the song does not mean, of course, that the Homeric narrator is a mere passive conduit: the narrative displays constant reminders of the narrator’s contribution, not least in its relentlessly human perspective on the events at Troy (cf. de Jong : –).



Creating Authorities

require corroboration. But Herodotus’ critical attitude to his sources is found throughout the Histories and forms a key element of his distinctively historiographical discourse, thus marked as different in particular from the modes employed in Archaic epic poetry. Herodotus regularly indicates the limits of his knowledge or the boundaries of possible research, as in his statement about the territories inland of those he covers in his account of Scythia: οὐδεὶς οἶδε ἀτρεκέως ὅ τι τὸ κατύπερθέ ἐστι· οὐδενὸς γὰρ δὴ αὐτόπτεω εἰδέναι φαμένου δύναμαι πυθέσθαι· οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ Ἀριστέης, τοῦ περ ὀλίγῳ πρότερον τούτων μνήμην ἐποιεύμην, οὐδὲ οὗτος προσωτέρω Ἰσση δόνων ἐν αὐτοῖσι τοῖσι ἔπεσι ποιέων ἔφησε ἀπικέσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὰ κατύπερθε ἔλεγε ἀκοῇ, φἀς’ Ἰσσηδόνας εἶναι τοὺς ταῦτα λέγοντας. ἀλλ’ ὅσον μὲν ἡμεῖς ἀτρεκέως ἐπὶ μακρότατον οἷοι τε ἐγενόμεθα ἀκοῇ ἐξικέσθαι, πᾶν εἰρήσεται. (Hdt. .. ) No one knows accurately what lies inland, because I am unable to get information from anyone who says they have eyewitness knowledge, since not even Aristeas, whom I’ve just been discussing, claimed in his poem to have gone further than the Issedones: rather he spoke of what was beyond on the basis of hearsay, saying that the Issedones had been the ones who told him these things. Nevertheless, I shall tell all which I have managed accurately (as far as possible) to ascertain from reports.

Here the limitations of Herodotus’ historical inquiry are clear, as are his reservations about the nature of some of his sources: Herodotus regularly criticises or expresses doubts about elements he has found in his sources (e.g. when he announces at Hdt. .. that he does not believe the suggestion that the ancient channel of the Halys was completely dried up when redirected in order to allow the Lydian army to cross it, on the grounds that if that were the case they could not have crossed the river on 





This is not to say that poetic authority was never problematic in the Archaic period: the words of the Muses at Hes. Th. – make an explicit claim to potential deceptiveness even for their own utterances (cf. Solon fr.  W. πολλὰ ψεύδονται ἀοιδοί). Cf. with Asheri et al. :  his use of the phrase ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθάνομαι (‘as far as I can ascertain’, Hdt. ..), of the reason for the reconciliation of Alyattes and the Milesians. Fundamental on the nature of the Herodotean narrator is Dewald , who notes the unusual prominence and frequency of first-person statements in Herodotus when compared to other historians, and argues that this in part advertises the labour expended in the creation of the historical narrative. See further on the Herodotean historiographical persona Marincola , Dewald , Brock . The presentation of a ‘chain of sources’ as in the example above is a further aspect of the creation of authority in Herodotean historiography: Fehling :  points out that Herodotus does not quote information from places on the edges of the world but rather marks the indirect nature of the information he has gathered about such places, e.g. ‘the X are said to say’ or ‘the X and those who have heard it from them say’.

The Historiographical Mode



their return). As Asheri has pointed out, Herodotus does not always cite his sources, but he does so often enough and in such a way as to establish that he is constructing an authoritative narrative on the basis of careful investigation into the events of the past. Herodotus’ proem in part marks out the Histories as distinct from Homeric epic (while also establishing some close connections with Homer); the beginning of the Argonautica emphasises how unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey it too will be, and it does so in part by engaging with prominent aspects of historiographical discourse, especially as exemplified by key Herodotean passages such as the proem. Every line of the Argonautica engages with traditional epic diction, metre, structures and ideology, but the evocation of historiographical discourse is crucial to controlling and modifying the readers’ expectations of the character of the narrative of the epic. I examine first broad similarities between the beginning of the epic and important features of historiographical discourse, before moving to examine how these features are reminiscent in particular of Herodotean historiography, reinforced by key intertextual engagement with the Herodotean proem as a crucial modello-esemplare for Apollonius. The proem of the Argonautica is itself distinctive with regard to its epic forerunners: Ἀρχόμενος σέο, Φοῖβε, παλαιγενέων κλέα φωτῶν μνήσομαι οἳ Πόντοιο κατὰ στόμα καὶ διὰ πέτρας Κυανέας βασιλῆος ἐφημοσύνῃ Πελίαο χρύσειον μετὰ κῶας ἐύζυγον ἤλασαν Ἀργώ.

(A.R. . )



  



Presumably he means that the river’s new channel would have been too great to cross, since the point of the story of Thales’ redirection is that he split it into two channels, both of which could be forded (Hdt. ..–). Asheri et al. : . For Herodotus’ critical attitude to his sources as his particular contribution to the development of historiography see Fowler :  and pp. – above. A critical process of selection and evaluation underlies Herodotus’ indications of his sources: it is to this process that the first-person statements in the Histories often advert, as established in Dewald ,  and n.  above. See further Asheri et al. : –, who point out the way in which Herodotus can choose among alternatives on the basis of plausibility (e.g. at Hdt. ..). Recent critics have also emphasised both the innovative nature of these source-citations in their Herodotean form in historiography, where he selects between alternatives (cf. Fowler : –), and the connections with wider intellectual developments in the fifth century (see, e.g., Thomas : ). For convenience I label such features as constituting the ‘historiographical mode’; this mode is not confined to Herodotus but characterises the genre of historiography more broadly. For the distinctive markers of historiographical discourse as compared with fiction, see Introduction, ‘History and Fiction’, pp. – above.



Creating Authorities

Beginning with you, Phoebus, I shall recall the glorious deeds of men of long ago, who drove the well benched Argo through the mouth of Pontus and between the Dark Rocks by the command of king Pelias to get the golden fleece.

There is no invocation of the Muse to tell or sing the tale: instead the narrator himself will take up the story (μνήσομαι, A.R. .); the firstperson statement is matched by another in line  (μυθησαίμην, ‘I will recount’), introducing the Catalogue of Argonauts. Such prominent opening first-person statements resemble the openings of several fifthcentury prose works, notably Hecataeus of Miletus, where we also find the use of the verb μυθεῖσθαι (Ἑκαταῖος Μιλήσιος ὧδε μυθεῖται· τάδε γράφω, ὥς μοι δοκεῖ ἀληθέα εἶναι, ‘Hecataeus of Miletus recounts as follows: I write these things as they appear to me to be true’, FGrH  F). The explicit telling of a tale from its beginning (ἀρχόμενος, A.R. .) in order to record the kleos of men of the past (παλαιγενέων κλέα φωτῶν, A.R. .), recalls the dual interest of Herodotus in preserving kleos and investigating the beginning of the war, its αἰτίη. Furthermore the Argonautica clearly defines itself against the tales of earlier poets (οἱ πρόσθεν . . . κλείουσιν ἀοιδοί, A.R. .) who sang of the Argo itself: the narrator of the Argonautica will instead tackle the identities and descent of the Argonauts (A.R. .–). This definition against the work of predecessors is found in historiography, notably Hecataeus and Herodotus,

 







For the long debate on the meaning of the wish at A.R. . that the Muses be the hypophetores of the song, see Morrison : –. As in Herodotus there is a combination of resemblance and difference: the ‘glorious deeds of men of long ago’ establish the heroic subject matter of the epic in a manner which might evoke Homer to some readers (cf. Hunter : ), but the closest formal parallel is provided by a Homeric Hymn (.–), on which see Vian :  ad loc., Clauss : –. Cf. also μνήσομαι in the same sedes at h.Ap. : see, e.g., Morrison : . On the combination of epic phraseology with historiographical overtones see n.  below. See Fowler :  with n.  on the confident, assertive first person employed in several such surviving beginnings, such as those of Hecataeus of Miletus (FGrH  F), Heraclitus (DK  B), Antiochus of Syracuse (Περὶ Ἰταλίας FGrH  F), Diogenes of Apollonia (DK  B) as well as Herodotus and Thucydides. See Pearson :  for the similarity of A.R. .ff. to Hecataeus FGrH  F, noting alongside the prominent first person and the use of μυθεῖσθαι the combination of an interest in Argonautic ancestry (γενέην, A.R. .) alongside their travels (δολιχῆς τε πόρους ἁλός, A.R. .) which echoes Hecataeus’ works the Genealogies and the Periodos Gēs. Cf. ταῦτα μέν νυν Πέρσαι τε καὶ Φοίνικες λέγουσι· ἐγὼ δὲ περὶ μὲν τούτων οὐκ ἔρχομαι ἐρέων . . . (‘This is what the Persians and the Phoenicians say: but I, on the other hand, will not say about these things . . .’, Hdt. .) and οἱ γὰρ ῾Ελλήνων λόγοι πολλοί τε καὶ γελοῖοι, ὡς ἐμοὶ φαίνονται, εἰσίν (‘Because the stories of the Greeks are many and laughable, as it seems to me’, Hecataeus FGrH  F).

The Historiographical Mode



but it is a striking divergence from Homer: no earlier versions of the Odyssey or Iliad are mentioned by the Homeric narrator (even to contrast his own achievement with the inferiority of predecessors). Even more significantly, the Catalogue of Argonauts which follows the proem also has aspects which strongly resemble key features of historiographical discourse, which serve to underline the differences from Homer as Apollonius produces his own version of the epic set-piece of the catalogue. In the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships the Homeric narrator flags his complete dependence on the Muses (ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, | ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, ‘Since you are goddesses and always present and know everything, but we hear only report and know nothing’, Il. .–). The Catalogue of Argonauts is presented, however, as having been composed from a range of sources, and presents a narrator who appears to be determining precisely what can be known about the Argonauts so that ‘we do not learn’ (οὐδὲ . . . πευθόμεθ’, A.R. .–) that Heracles ignored Jason’s summons, but ‘we know’ (ἴδμεν, A.R. .) that Lernus was the son of Proteus. The careful establishing of the extent of the narrator’s knowledge (οὐδὲ . . . πευθόμεθ’, ἴδμεν) resembles a prominent concern at the beginning of key works of historiography with establishing the proper limits of historical enquiry. Herodotus, for example, emphasises that his project begins from what is known (τὸν δὲ οἶδα αὐτὸς πρῶτον ὑπάρξαντα (‘the man whom I know myself to have first begun’, Hdt. ..); οὗτος ὁ Κροῖσος βαρβάρων πρῶτος τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν, ‘This Croesus was the first of the barbarians of those we know’, Hdt. ..); a similar marking out of what can be established from the available evidence is found at the beginning of Thucydides, where he asserts that historical research into the events of the very distant past is impossible, but that he has pursued it as far as possible. The Argonautica’s own marking out of knowledge from 

 



Nevertheless the language of the Argonautica remains firmly rooted in the Homeric epics, despite this striking difference of effect: κλείουσιν ἀοιδοί (A.R. .) is adopted from Od. . (see further Clauss : –), while there are also epic parallels for the combination at A.R. . of ἐγώ and μυθησαίμην (see also Ardizzoni : , who cites Il. ., Od. ., Op. ). See Chiasson : . The Catalogue of Argonauts is often thought itself to reflect periplus literature (which could be verse as well as prose): cf. Carspecken : –, Beye : , Romm :  n. , Clauss : –. But it is clear that the catalogue is an epic set-piece used in the Iliad to foreground the nature of the primary narrator’s authority, which is treated in a very different way in Apollonius, in part in order to advertise the use of other (non-epic) modes of discourse in the epic. See esp. τὰ γὰρ πρὸ αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ ἔτι παλαίτερα σαφῶς μὲν εὑρεῖν διὰ χρόνου πλῆθος ἀδύνατα ἦν, ἐκ δὲ τεκμηρίων ὧν ἐπὶ μακρότατον σκοποῦντί μοι πιστεῦσαι ξυμβαίνει οὐ μεγάλα νομίζω γενέσθαι οὔτε κατὰ τοὺς πολέμους οὔτε ἐς τὰ ἄλλα (‘It was impossible to discover clearly



Creating Authorities

ignorance in the Catalogue resembles a historiographical attitude to the origins of one’s information much more closely than it does the traditional epic pose of ignorance before the Muse (οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, ‘we know nothing’, Il. .). In addition to these broader similarities to historiographical discourse there are also aspects of the Catalogue which recall Herodotus more specifically, in particular the way in which it handles its sources. A source is cited for several elements in the Catalogue: Orpheus ‘is said’ (φατίζεται, A.R. .) to have been born to Calliope, aoidoi sing about the fate of Caeneus (A.R. .), father of the Argonaut Coronus, and it is on this basis that the narrator judges that Coronus was ‘no braver than his father’ (ἑοῦ δ’ οὐ πατρὸς ἀμείνων, A.R. .), Augeas ‘was said’ (φάτις, A.R. .) to be the son of Helios. Most significant of all is the handling of the source invoked for Orpheus’ ability to charm rocks and rivers: αὐτὰρ τόν γ’ ἐνέπουσιν ἀτειρέας οὔρεσι πέτρας | θέλξαι ἀοιδάων ἐνοπῇ ποταμῶν τε ῥέεθρα (‘And he is the one they say charmed the hard rocks on the mountains and the waters of rivers through the sound of his songs’, A.R. .–); what is particularly Herodotean here is the way in which Apollonius constructs his narrator as sifting his evidence and applying a critical intelligence to it: there exists visible ‘proof’ of Orpheus’ deeds









anything about earlier or still more ancient events because of the great amount of time gone by, but from the evidence which, as I investigated as far back as possible, I could rely on, I am of the opinion that they were not significant either as regards wars or anything else’, Thuc. ..). The ἴδμεν of A.R. . is a particularly striking reversal of the professed ignorance of the Homeric narrator in the Catalogue of Ships. I am not persuaded by the idiosyncratic reading of Berkowitz : –, esp.  n. , –, who thinks these first-person plural statements indicate the collaboration of the Muses with the primary narrator in a private ‘dialogue’ which the epic’s audience has no access to, such that the Muses are acting as ‘interpreters’ (cf. ὑποφήτορες, A.R. .), i.e. as critical filters through which source material for the epic passes before being related to the audience. But this analysis cannot explain why the Muses are almost absent from the majority of A.R. –, nor how the critical, interpretative role of the Muses would have been apparent to readers. Berkowitz :  compares the putative critical evaluation of sources by the Argonautic Muses with Herodotus, but this similarity suggests in fact that we should see the handling of sources in Apollonius in terms of the adoption of an aspect of historiographical discourse. As in Herodotus, the Argonautic narrator does not specify the existence of a source for each Argonaut in the catalogue, but does so often enough and in such a way as to indicate that he is evaluating (to some extent at least) the sources he has found, rather than simply reproducing or accepting a comprehensive account in its entirety, as in the critical distance expressed (εἰ ἐτεόν γε πέλει κλέος, ‘if the story is really true’, ) about Lynceus’ superhuman eyesight (A.R. .–). On the rider εἰ ἐτεόν γε πέλει κλέος see Swinton : esp. . Though we might have expected, as Cuypers :  has pointed out, not only Calliope to know about the birth of her son, but for her to be consulted on the question in an epic. Cuypers sees this as part of a wider undermining of the traditional inspiration of the epic bard. Cf. Harder : –, who compares the Apollonian narrator’s method here with a historian’s search for tekmeria. The Argonautic narrator also demonstrates a critical, historiographical attitude

The Historiographical Mode



(A.R. .–), the trees which stand on the Thracian shore as κείνης ἔτι σήματα μολπῆς (‘continuing signs of that song’, A.R. .). The appeal to visible evidence (σήματα, ‘signs’) gestures towards the importance of opsis (‘observation’) in Herodotus (e.g. μέχρι μὲν τούτου ὄψις τε ἐμὴ καὶ γνώμη καὶ ἱστορίη ταῦτα λέγουσά ἐστι, τὸ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦδε Αἰγυπτίους ἔρχομαι λόγους ἐρέων κατὰ τὰ ἤκουον· προσέσται δὲ αὐτοῖσί τι καὶ τῆς ἐμῆς ὄψιος, ‘up to this point I have reported my own observations, judgement, research. From now on I shall report Egyptian accounts according to what I have heard, to which I will add some things from my own observations’, Hdt. .., cf. also ..). The critical judgement of sources is on show elsewhere in the Argonautica, but it is particularly striking that it is in the Catalogue (a highly marked generic component of epic) at the start of the poem where Apollonius emphasises the very different nature of his approach to the sources of his narrative from that found in earlier epic. And this foregrounding of sources is a reminder of Herodotus in particular, whose ‘explicit awareness of the problems of sources and his development of methods of dealing with them are his distinctive contribution to historiography’. The particular importance of Herodotus as a model for the Catalogue’s engagement with its sources is underlined by the role the Herodotean proem plays in the epic. One of the stories the Persians include in their account of the origins of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks is precisely the Argonautic expedition and the abduction of Medea (Hdt. ..); Herodotus explicitly contrasts his historical account with such tales: his narrative will begin from what can be known (Croesus, Hdt. ..). Furthermore, the Herodotean summary of the Argonautic story presents it as an anachronistically Panhellenic enterprise (the Persians blame ‘the Greeks’ (Ἕλληνας) for taking Medea and send a herald ‘to Hellas’ (ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα) to recover her), which Dufner has





when he corrects facts or anticipates misapprehensions (e.g. in the statement that Idmon was not ‘truly’ (ἐτήτυμον, A.R. .) the son of Abas). Cf. A.R..– on Palaemonius (Λέρνου ἐπίκλησιν, γενεήν γε μὲν Ἡφαίστοιο, ‘called the son of Lernus, but in fact the son of Hephaestus’) and the near-correction at A.R..– on the fathers of Eurytion and Erybotes: ἤτοι ὁ μὲν Τελέοντος ἐυκλειὴς Ἐρυβώτης, | Ἴρου δ’ Εὐρυτίων (‘in fact glorious Erybotes was the son of Teleon, Eurytion the son of Irus’). He can also express his judgement about individual Argonauts on the basis of what he has learnt: τοῦ δ’ οὔ τιν’ ὑπέρτερον ἄλλον ὀίω, | νόσφιν γ’ Ἡρακλῆος, ἐπελθέμεν, εἴ κ’ ἔτι μοῦνον | αὖθι μένων λυκάβαντα μετετράφη Αἰτωλοῖσιν (‘Nor do I think that any other would have come superior to him (save for Heracles), if he’d remained there for one year more being raised among the Aetolians’, A.R. .–, referring to Meleager). E.g. in the deployment of the rather Herodotean particle που (‘evidently’) to mark inferences or assumptions from implied sources (as at A.R. . in the description of the signs the mother of the gods sends in response to the Argonauts’ sacrifices). Fowler : , cf. Thomas : .



Creating Authorities

argued convincingly is a key reference-point for the Argonautica’s depiction of Jason’s quest as a Panhellenic expedition (e.g. at A.R. .–). The Argonautica exploits the rationalised myth in the Persian account by turning it back into epic but imagining Jason and the Argonauts as existing in a very similar world to the one described there, where ‘Greeks’ and ‘Colchians’ attempt to negotiate with one another (the king of the Colchians demands reparations and the return of his daughter, but the Greeks refuse, on the grounds that no reparations were made for Io, Hdt. ..): the Argonauts strike a bargain with Apsyrtus’ Colchians (A.R. .–) and one is later negotiated between the Argonauts and the second group of Colchians by Alcinous on Drepane (A.R. .–). The connection with the Herodotean proem does not simply establish Herodotus as a relevant intertext: the fact that the Argonautic story is in the proem foil for Herodotus’ historiographical analysis underlines the incongruity of taking up the historiographical mode for epic subject matter. Moreover, the fact that the narrator is presented in the Catalogue as viewing oak trees as the still visible ‘signs’ of Orpheus’ magical ability to enchant parts of the landscape not only underlines the difference between evoking the historiographical mode within a mythological epic and employing such a mode with regard to historical events, but also suggests the limitations of the critical intelligence of the Apollonian narrator. The corroborative signs on which Apollonius relies for his mythological narrative appear inadequate to bring his subject matter into the realm of the knowable: they are merely trees on the coast. A further historiographical text underlines the shift in the Argonautica (and its attendant problems). In his funeral speech in Thucydides, Pericles declares that future generations will have no need of poets such as Homer to see the present generation’s greatness, ‘because everywhere we have established everlasting memorials of our good deeds and bad’ (πανταχοῦ δὲ μνημεῖα κακῶν τε κἀγαθῶν ἀίδια ξυγκατοικίσαντες, Thuc. ..). There is no need for poetic commemoration because of the ‘powerful signs’ (μεγάλων . . . σημείων, Thuc. ..) left behind: epic is presented as an inferior means of memorialisation to the clear evidence the Athenians will bequeath to their   

Dufner : –. See also Beye : – on the anachronistic Panhellenism at A.R. .– and Vian :  n.  for Jason in Apollonius as a Panhellenic leader. See Dufner : –. The difficulty of speaking with confidence about the truth or accuracy of accounts of events such as the abduction of Medea is explicit in Herodotus (ἐγὼ δὲ περὶ μὲν τούτων οὐκ ἔρχομαι ἐρέων ὡς οὕτως ἢ ἄλλως κως ταῦτα ἐγένετο, ‘I, on the other hand, am not going to say about these matters that these things happened in this way or in another way’, Hdt. ..). Cf. Thuc. .., ...

The Historiographical Mode



descendants. Apollonius instead portrays his narrator as employing ‘signs’ (but notably inferior ones) in order to construct his epic. The inadequacy of the evidence being employed for the veracity of Orpheus’ song suggests the incongruity of constructing a mythic narrative on the basis of ‘signs’, and thus raises doubts in readers’ minds about the authority and reliability of the narrator, which are later reinforced. The use of such ‘signs’ to corroborate a mythological narrative in fact complicates it, by blurring the distinction between the expected relationship between an epic narrative and the ‘referential level’, properly a further narratological level for historical but not fictional narrative. Apollonius’ aetiological interest is a further aspect of this use of σήματα: these become more problematic, as Feeney notes, as the poem goes on, and result in a sharp weakening of the authoritativeness of the narrative, having begun as a way of bolstering its verisimilitude. The use by Apollonius of σήματα to confirm the tale told about Orpheus’ magical abilities is particularly pointed if we view it in the context of the use and control of signs in Herodotus as part of the Herodotean project to mark out his history as equivalent to but different from Homeric epic. Gregory Nagy has suggested that Herodotus is concerned in the proem to characterise himself as a prose logios equivalent to the Homeric aoidos, though the basis of his authority is very different, as we have seen. Nagy suggests that Herodotus’ use of the verb σημαίνω (‘indicate’) at Hdt. .. (τοῦτον σημήνας, ‘indicating him’) of the naming of Croesus as the non-Greek whom Herodotus knows (οἶδα, Hdt...) to have first begun wronging the Greeks portrays Herodotus as doing so ‘on the basis of superior knowledge’, in this respect similar to the Delphic

  





Cohn : , : –, see also pp. – above. Feeney : –. See further pp. – below. See Feeney : – with n.  on the collapse of the ‘referential code’ (the stream of references to names, places, etc. in the ‘real’ world) outside realist texts. See Barthes : – on the referential code and Morrison : – on the progress of the narrator’s crisis in the Argonautica. Nagy : –, who points out the close assocation of logioi and aoidoi in Pindar (e.g. ὀπιθόμβροτον αὔχημα δόξας | οἶον ἀποιχομένων ἀνδρῶν δίαιταν μανύει | καὶ λογίοις καὶ ἀοιδοῖς, ‘glory’s acclaim which lives after men alone reveals the way of life of men who have departed to chroniclers and singers’, P. .–) and the role of the logios in conferring kleos (πλατεῖαι πάντοθεν λογίοισιν ἐντὶ πρόσοδοι | νᾶσον εὐκλέα τάνδε κοσμεῖν· ἐπεί σφιν Αἰακίδαι | ἔπορον ἔξοχον αἶσαν ἀρετὰς ἀποδεικνύμενοι μεγάλας, ‘there are broad paths on every side for chroniclers to adorn this glorious island’, N. .–), which resembles the aims sketched out at the very beginning of the Histories. See also Hartog : –.



Creating Authorities

oracle, and the Homeric Odysseus himself (πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, ‘he saw the cities of many men and came to know their minds’, Od. .). Nagy lays great stress on Odysseus’ control of ‘signs’ (σήματα), in particular the σῆμα about which Teiresias informs him and which will tell him when he has completed his future, final journey to end his days among those without knowledge of the sea (Od. .–). Developing this analysis, Hollmann has recently argued persuasively that Herodotus portrays himself in the Histories as an authoritative ‘master of signs’, who is expert in the interpretation of various types of sign, including oracles, portents and dreams, and depicts several characters in his narrative who are able to manipulate and control signs. It is striking that in Herodotus’ descriptions of such manipulation the agents involved are often described as ‘contriving’ (μηχανάομαι) or as having a ‘plan’ or ‘trick’ (μηχανή), which is in sharp contrast to the characterisation of Jason in the Argonautica as being ἀμήχανος or ‘without a plan’. If Herodotus is laying claim in his prose history to a mastery of signs (and therefore an authority equivalent to that of a Homer or an Odysseus, though not derived from the Muses or Teiresias), it is significant that Apollonius in turn transforms the relationship between epic and historiographical authority by depicting an epic narrator who attempts to employ signs in a manner in some ways reminiscent of Herodotus, but for a very different kind of narrative, and with far less competence and reliability. His narrator, I suggest, we are to read as far from a ‘master of signs’. Apollonius constructs a narrator who appears to employ tools reminiscent of those of historiographical research and analysis of sources, but focused entirely on the pre-Homeric heroic age of the Mediterranean and crucially without the explicit recognition of the difficulties in uncovering    

 



Cf. ὁ ἄναξ οὗ τὸ μαντεῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἐν Δελφοῖς οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σημαίνει, ‘the lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor hides but indicates’, Heraclitus DK  B.  Nagy : –. Hollmann , . On the vocabulary employed for signs and their interpretation in Herodotus see Hollmann : –. On the different varieties of sign see Hollmann : –. Cf. e.g. his interpretation of the oracle to the Siphnians (Hdt. ..), the portent of the hare born from a mare (..), and the dream of Polycrates’ daughter (..). See further Hollmann : –. On these manipulators see Hollmann : – and the appendix at –. Cf. e.g. .. (Pisistratus), .. (Mycerinus), .. (Amasis), .., .. (Alcmaeonidae), .. (Demaratus, Gorgo)). For μηχανή and related words as a signal to the audience of ingenuity and deception on the part of the agent see Hollmann : , : . Cf. ἀμήχανος/ἀμηχανίη/ἀμηχανέω of Jason (in the narrator’s voice) at A.R. ., ., ., ., ., .; (in the mouths of characters) at ., ., .. Critics usually contrast Jason’s ἀμηχανίη with the resourcefulness of the Homeric Odysseus (πολύμητις, πολυμήχανος): see (e.g.) Hunter : –.

Herodotus as Historiographical Modello-Codice



information about events of long ago and the problems in relying on and deciding between sources which we find emphasised in Herodotus. The effect on readers is likely to have been somewhat ‘unsettling’, as Dufner has described it: the use of the historiographical mode in the context of a mythological epic will have led readers to modify their expectations of the nature of the epic, and question how complete a model the Homeric poems could be, given the extent of the distance established from the Iliad and Odyssey through the presence of a different kind of discourse right at the beginning of the Argonautica. It is also worth emphasising how different a mythological epic presenting itself as constructing its narrative on the basis of sources and signs is from the rationalising project of a mythographer such as Herodorus: where Herodorus adopts a critical perspective in order to normalise the events of myth, notably by removing the supernatural (e.g. where Phrixus’ fantastical journey to Colchis on the ram with the golden fleece is explained as deriving from the princely habit of learning to ride on rams, fr. A Fowler), Apollonius employs the historiographical mode as part of his reconstruction of a mythological narrative including such fantastical elements as travelling trees, firebreathing bulls and giant snakes.

Herodotus as Historiographical Modello-Codice It is worthwhile considering in more detail the ways in which the Argonautica recalls and transforms aspects of the historiographical mode, in order to sharpen the picture of Apollonius’ narrator as emphatically not a ‘master of signs’ and to examine the consequences for readers of the epic. Furthermore, examination of the ways in which the Argonautica employs the historiographical mode demonstrates that Herodotus is the epic’s modello-codice for historiography, including for such key features as ethnographic descriptions. Although the historiographical mode is not 



 

Cf. the opening sections of Thucydides, where he presents the results of his historical enquiry, with reservations about the possible unreliability of sources such as Homer (Thuc. .., ..), and a thoroughly rationalising account focusing on such elements as the size of the forces involved (Thuc. ..–). See in general Hornblower  ad loc. For the notion of a spatium historicum in Herodotus see e.g. Dewald : –, Baragwanath & de Bakker a:  with n.  (where the long controversy over the usefulness of this term is surveyed). So Dufner : , who notes that ‘The poet will not be content with a single tone or temporal point of view, nor will he confine himself to one genre appropriate to his subject matter’; ‘myth and history, or epic and history, collide and overtake one another’ (). See on the rationalising approach of Herodorus Fowler : , – and see pp. – below for Herodorus’ use of inferential που. See Fowler : .



Creating Authorities

confined to Herodotus but characteristic of the wider genre, Herodotus is likely to have been a principal reference-point for key characteristics of the historiographical mode both for Apollonius (as we have seen in the preceding section) and his readers (see Chapter ); here I argue for Herodotus playing the role of the modello-codice for historiography in the Argonautica, while also acting as a key modello-esemplare at particular points in the epic. As we have noted, the readers’ main generic reference point for the Argonautica is the character of the Homeric epics (the epic modello-codice for Apollonius), but the employment of aspects reminiscent of a different kind of discourse, historiography, in the Argonautica frustrates and modifies expectations built on a knowledge of the Homeric epics, since the relationship depicted in Apollonius between narrator and subject matter is very different from that in Homer (and indeed the category of fiction more broadly). In particular, it is the complicating of narratorial authority which is the effect of many of the transformations of Herodotean discourse in the Argonautica. A good example is provided by those occasions on which Apollonius (unHomerically) gives a double explanation of the origin of some feature of the world of his story. This strongly recalls the common Herodotean practice of giving variant versions of various components of his historical account, including the reasons for the actions of particular individual or groups, the precise events which took place, the origins of customs or institutions and so forth. Lateiner lists no fewer than  separate examples of Herodotus offering at least two alternative versions for a particular aspect of his narrative, that is occasions on which the versions offered conflict with or contradict one another to some degree, as when he presents the differing accounts of the origin of the Spartan constitution, which some unnamed people (οἱ μέν . . . τινες, Hdt. ..) say was the work of the Pythia, but the Spartans attribute to Lycurgus (ὡς δ’ αὐτοὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι λέγουσι, Hdt. ..). Here and elsewhere Herodotus does not make a preference explicit, and sometimes he underlines the necessary openness in cases where the evidence is not sufficient to determine the 



On Herodotean ‘double versions’ see in general Groten , Munson : –, Asheri et al. : – and especially Lateiner : –, who includes a very useful inventory of such versions at –. See also Marincola : appendix IV on the reasons given across ancient historiography for preferring one such version to another: such weighing up of material is an essential element in the discourse of ancient historiography and the ways in which historians present their narrative as authoritative. Cf. e.g. the list of possible reasons for Cyrus putting Croesus on the pyre at ... Further examples are listed at Lateiner : –. For cases involving the motivation of characters see Griffiths (in press) on Hdt. ...

Herodotus as Historiographical Modello-Codice



truth (as at Hdt. ., where he suspends judgement on the question of whether the ancestors of the Colchians in Sesostris’ army were settled by the king or deserted), but frequently Herodotus does express an opinion, as when he rejects the account which claims that the Samians sent by Polycrates to Egypt returned to defeat him (Hdt. ..). This technique is distinctively Herodotean, strongly suggesting Herodotus is Apollonius’ principal historiographical modello-codice: Thucydides and Xenophon give alternative versions much more infrequently, while the consideration of differing accounts or explanations of the same events is significantly present in the Histories’ programmatic, methodological opening, when Herodotus considers the various Persian, Phoenician and Greek accounts of the abduction of Io (Hdt. .., ..) and decides not to favour any one version (Hdt. ..). What is important from the perspective of the Argonautica is that although Herodotus does not always choose between the versions he records, it is clear that these versions are alternatives, that is that they cannot both straightforwardly be true at the same time. Herodotus, however, is also able to combine complementary accounts from a number of sources, where the story told by one individual or group can be said to ‘agree’ with the account of a different group, as at Hdt. . (λέγουσι Κορίνθιοι (ὁμολογέουσι δέ σφι Λέσβιοι), ‘the Corinthians say – and the Lesbians agree with them’). It is also possible for accounts to be combined into a fuller narrative greater than any one of its components, as when the Milesians are said to ‘add’ to the account of the Delphians as to the oracle’s response to Alyattes: Δελφῶν οἶδα ἐγὼ οὕτω ἀκούσας γενέσθαι· Μιλήσιοι δὲ τάδε προστιθεῖσι τούτοισι (‘This I know to be the case since I heard it from the Delphians, while the Milesians add to this the following . . .’, Hdt. ..). It is also clear when we are dealing with such complementary accounts in Herodotus: the readers are left in no doubt as to when Herodotus is    

 

οὐκ ἔχω τὸ ἐνθεῦτεν ἀτρεκέως εἰπεῖν εἴτε . . . εἴτε . . ., ‘I cannot say accurately whether . . . or . . .’ (Hdt. ..). λέγοντες ἐμοὶ δοκέειν οὐκ ὀρθῶς (‘[T]his account does not seem right to me’). See Hornblower : –, pointing out how different Thucydides is in this regard. Thucydides ‘seldom reports more than one version of events or the causal explanation that he finds most satisfactory’ (Lateiner : ), which Darbo-Peschanski :  characterises as Thucydides’ ‘monophonie’. Alternative versions are also rare in Xenophon’s Hellenica; a notable exception is in the context of the Theban coup in / , where Xenophon notes the existence of an alternative version where the murderers accessed their victims disguised as comasts not hetairai (Hell. ..): see Tuplin : .  See Asheri et al. : . Cf. Hdt. .., ... Cf. Hdt. .. on the Theran account supplementing that of the Spartans on the foundation of Cyrene.



Creating Authorities

presenting alternative versions (whether or not one can decide between them) and where an additional or extra component of the narrative is ‘added’ to an account. Apollonius recalls these related but distinct aspects of Herodotus’ historiographical technique, but the effect is strikingly unHerodotean. In Herodotus the reporting of ‘double versions’ is directly related to the presentation of his historiographical method as one which involves the recording of what is said to him but without a commitment to believing it (e.g. at Hdt. ..; see below), which in turn portrays his narrative as one built up from the careful gathering and weighing up of sources (see Hdt. .. for the selection among variant versions of which is the ‘most plausible’). In book , as the Argonauts are fleeing from the pursuing Colchians, they make use of the mythical river Eridanus, which affords the narrator the opportunity to explain the presence of amber in and around the river. It was into the swampy waters of the Eridanus that Phaethon fell when struck by a bolt of lightning (A.R. .–) and ‘to this day’ (ἔτι νῦν περ, A.R. .) steam spews from Phaethon’s wound. It is implied, therefore, that the steam produced in the swamp is a still visible σῆμα of the mythological event, in the manner of similar σήματα Apollonius points out elsewhere. This leads him to another visible σῆμα, the tears shed by Phaethon’s sisters, the Heliades: ἐκ δὲ φαεινὰς ἠλέκτρου λιβάδας βλεφάρων προχέουσιν ἔραζε, αἱ μέν τ’ ἠελίῳ ψαμάθοις ἔπι τερσαίνονται· εὖτ’ ἂν δὲ κλύζῃσι κελαινῆς ὕδατα λίμνης ἠιόνας πνοιῇ πολυηχέος ἐξ ἀνέμοιο, δὴ τότ’ ἐς Ἠριδανὸν προκυλίνδεται ἀθρόα πάντα κυμαίνοντι ῥόῳ.

(A.R. . )

From their eyes they pour forth to the ground shining drops of amber, which are dried up on the sand by the sun, and whenever a blast of loud sounding wind washes the waters of the dark marsh over its shores, at that time all at once they are rolled forth into the Eridanus by the swelling stream.

 



See Groten : , Lateiner : –. See on the construction of what she terms Herodotus’ ‘Expert’s Persona’ Dewald , who shows how crucial to this process are the proem (–) and Herodotus’ wealth of ‘metanarrative’ comments about the logoi he has gathered and evaluated (–). On the sources on which Apollonius is drawing here, see Dufner : –; Dufner :  notes the combination of scientific manner and fabulous subject matter in Apollonius’ description at .–.

Herodotus as Historiographical Modello-Codice



Immediately, however, there follows a different version, that of the Celts: Κελτοὶ δ’ ἐπὶ βάξιν ἔθεντο | ὡς . . . (‘the Celts added the story that . . .’, A.R. .–). The language of addition recalls the combination of complementary accounts in Herodotus through the adding of extra material (n.b. ἐπὶ . . . ἔθεντο, A.R. .– ~ προστιθεῖσι, Hdt. ..), so readers recognising the gesture towards an aspect of the manner of Herodotean historiography might have expected a story which expanded on or confirmed aspects of the Heliades' version. But the story which the Celts added is rather a contradictory one: their version is that the tears are in fact those of Apollo shed in grief at the death of Asclepius. It is, in fact, an alternative version, rather than a complementary one, despite the manner of its introduction. Apollonius closes this account with the statement that καὶ τὰ μὲν ὣςς κείνοισι μετ’ ἀνδράσι κεκλήισται (‘so it is told among those people’, A.R. .). It is then clear (but not explicitly asserted or underlined) that the narrator regards the story about the Heliades to be true, since he then tells us that the Argonauts could hear them crying, and that their tears were carried along by the water like drops of oil (A.R. .–). The Celtic version flatly contradicts the Heliades' story (rather than building upon it), but this is not marked for the audience: rather the versions are presented as if complementary, thus combining the language of Herodotean complementary or additional accounts with the situation of contradictory alternative versions of the kind which are also characteristic of Herodotus. But this blending of distinct aspects of Herodotus’ historiographical manner strongly suggests that the Apollonian narrator (at this point in the narrative, at least) is not able to distinguish between variants he should evaluate and assess and amongst which he should choose (or suspend judgement about) and stories which can be combined into a coherent account, in marked contrast to the Herodotean narrator. Why, then, does Apollonius give the second version, which is marked off from the main narrative by two ‘they say’ statements at its beginning and end (A.R. ., )? Given the recollection (alongside distortion) of aspects of the historiographical manner of Herodotus in this part of the epic we should discern here too some play with the use and interpretation    

This version is not otherwise attested and is perhaps an Apollonian invention (see Hunter : ). See Fränkel : , Vian : . Cf. Vian : –, Dufner :  on the implicit acceptance of the first of the two explanations given for the name of Drepane at A.R. .–. See the important discussion at Cuypers : .



Creating Authorities

of σήματα and the problems the Argonautic narrator has in reading them right. Indeed, this entire section of the Argonautica begins with explicit questioning of the Muses as to the σήματα left by the Argonauts: ἀλλά, θεαί, πῶς τῆσδε παρὲξ ἁλός, ἀμφί τε γαῖαν Αὐσονίην νήσους τε Λιγυστίδας, αἳ καλέονται Στοιχάδες, Ἀργῴης περιώσια σήματα νηὸς νημερτὲς πέφαται; (A.R. . )

But, goddesses, how is it that beyond this sea, around both the Ausonian land and the Ligystian islands, which are called the Stoechades, numberless signs of the Argo are clearly spoken of?

Though these σήματα are countless in number (or, possibly, ‘striking’) and told of ‘clearly’ (νημερτές), the fact that the narrator has to direct a question about them to the Muses advertises the problems involved in using σήματα to find out about the past: the σήματα do not of themselves explain how they came to be where they are, beyond the Adriatic. This gappiness or incompleteness in σήματα as a means of informing oneself about past events points to the possibility of their being explained in different, contradictory ways, as well as to the possibility of error in their interpretation (as in the example of Idmon’s σῆμα at A.R. .–). The historiographical mode – presenting, examining, assessing and (where possible) selecting between different sources and σήματα – is subordinated here to the epic manner in a question to the goddesses of epic narrative, the Muses, who had been marginalised at the beginning of the poem. This fits into the wider pattern in the Argonautica which moves from narratorial independence from the Muses towards a greater dependence on them, but it also has a particular Herodotean resonance. Herodotus expresses his own view on the Eridanus, and gives forceful reasons for it: περὶ δὲ τῶν ἐν τῇ Εὐρώπῃ τῶν πρὸς ἑσπέρην ἐσχατιέων ἔχω μὲν οὐκ ἀτρεκέως λέγειν· οὔτε γὰρ ἔγωγε ἐνδέκομαι Ἠριδανὸν καλέεσθαι πρὸς  

See Mooney  ad loc. See below. Cf. also the question posed at A.R. . about which other Argonaut died along with Idmon in book , which is prompted by the continuing presence of two visible σήματα. Having asked the question, perhaps to the Muses, the answer comes from φάτις (‘what is said’), another mixing perhaps of the aspects of historiographical and epic discourse in such a way as to problematise the authority of the Apollonian narrative: τίς γὰρ δὴ θάνεν ἄλλος; ἐπεὶ καὶ ἔτ’ αὖτις ἔχευαν | ἥρωες τότε τύμβον ἀποφθιμένου ἑτάροιο. | δοιὰ γὰρ οὖν κείνων ἔτι σήματα φαίνεται ἀνδρῶν. | Ἁγνιάδην Τῖφυν θανέειν φάτις· (‘So who else died? The heroes at that time yet again poured out a barrow for a fallen companion, because two markers of those men are yet visible. The story is that Tiphys, the son of Hagnias, died’, A.R. .–).

Herodotus as Historiographical Modello-Codice



βαρβάρων ποταμὸν ἐκδιδόντα ἐς θάλασσαν τὴν πρὸς βορέην ἄνεμον, ἀπ’ ὅτευ τὸ ἤλεκτρον φοιτᾶν λόγος ἐστί, οὔτε νήσους οἶδα Κασσιτερίδας ἐούσας, ἐκ τῶν ὁ κασσίτερος ἡμῖν φοιτᾷ. τοῦτο μὲν γὰρ ὁ Ἠριδανὸς αὐτὸ κατηγορέει τὸ οὔνομα ὡς ἔστι Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ οὐ βάρβαρον, ὑπὸ ποιητέω δέ τινος ποιηθέν· τοῦτο δὲ οὐδενὸς αὐτόπτεω γενομένου δύναμαι ἀκοῦσαι, τοῦτο μελετῶν, ὅκως θάλασσα ἐστὶ τὰ ἐπέκεινα Εὐρώπης. ἐξ ἐσχάτης δ’ ὦν ὁ κασσίτερος ἡμῖν φοιτᾷ καὶ τὸ ἤλεκτρον. (Hdt. .. ) About the furthest parts of Europe towards the west I am not able to speak with certainty: I for my part do not believe that a river called Eridanus by barbarians issues into the sea to the north, from which the story goes that amber comes to us, nor have I knowledge of Tin Islands from which tin comes to us. The name Eridanus itself suggests that it is Greek rather than barbarian, and made up by some poet. Despite considerable effort, I am unable to confirm from one who has set eyes on it that there is a sea on the far side of Europe. But tin and amber do come to us from the furthest parts.

Herodotus’ critical intelligence cannot confirm the existence of places, such as the Eridanus, for which he can find no reliable source, and he contrasts those locations he can talk about with confidence with elements which seem to be made up by poets (ὑπὸ ποιητέω δέ τινος ποιηθέν). This is designed, of course, to emphasise the contrast between the historiographical manner and the very different kind of discourse employed in poetry (especially epic). But in an epic which evokes (and distorts) key elements of his historiographical method in part through foregrounding its narrator’s reading of σήματα (as at A.R. .–), the Herodotean intertext sidelining poetic fictions about the very territory through which the Argonauts are travelling serves to complicate the apparent authority created through the use of signs of the Argonauts’ progress to underpin the epic’s narrative of the mythological past. If, as I have suggested above, the documentation of sources, their critical analysis and other related elements of (especially Herodotean) historiographical discourse are strong generic markers of historiography, which sets up very different expectations in its audience and brings with it a very different relationship to a referential level beyond the narrative itself from those we find in fictional narratives such as those of epic poetry, then Apollonius’ combination of elements proper to epic and historiographical modes in the Argonautica must have produced a very distinctive impression on ancient readers. Although historiography and epic were regarded  

In Introduction, pp. – on ‘History and Fiction’. Cf. Beye : –, Dufner : – on the effect on readers of the Argonautica’s combination of perspectives proper to different types of discourse and see also pp. – above.



Creating Authorities

as closely related in much ancient critical thinking, they were usually distinguished in terms of the manner and approach each took to its subject matter. The attitude to sources and the role of the referential level are key aspects of this difference. In epic poetry, at least as represented by the Homeric poems, there is little concern with the establishment of sources to authorise narratives or support statements about the motivation of particular characters. But in the historiographical tradition initiated by Herodotus (and for Apollonius and his readers best represented by him) we find a deep, defining interest in the marking of the sources for (e.g.) particular events, customs, psychological motivations and the indication of what is certainly known and what has been inferred from evidence. Apollonius, however, employs elements of the historiographical mode with regard to the mythological events within an epic, with profound consequences for the character of his poem, emphasising for readers rather the problems in building a mythological narrative on sources and σήματα which demand evaluation and judicious combination, in turn focusing attention on the epic’s narrator and his limitations. This will have consequences for the presentation of key figures in the poem, and their potential to act as exemplars or models.

What Needs to Be In: Historical Obligation and Apollonius Herodotus is also the primary reference-point for Apollonius’ employment of the historiographical mode where the Argonautica recalls Herodotean methodological statements about the need to tell or include certain accounts of particular events (the notion of a ‘historiographical obligation’ of some kind). Herodotus, for example, follows his account of the   



 

See p.  above on the Apotheosis of Homer by Archelaus of Priene for the close relationship of history and epic. E.g. Quint. Inst. .., Arist. Po. .a–b. See in general Feeney : –. A feature shared, as we have seen, with a wide range of what we would regard as fictional narrative, both ancient and modern: see Cohn : –, : –, Hodkinson : –, and pp. – above. See pp. – above. There is, of course, a vigorous debate about whether Herodotus’ sourcecitations are genuine citations or part of a rhetoric of documentation designed to hide or obscure the invention of these stories by Herodotus himself (see esp. Fehling  for the view that the sourcecitations are fictitious and in general Fowler : –, Luraghi , : –, Hornblower : – for the problems in Fehling’s approach), but from the perspective of the Argonautica the crucial thing is their presence in Herodotus’ historiographical discourse. See also n.  above. See further pp. – below. See on Herodotus’ historiographical obligations Lateiner :  with nn. , , where he gives some examples of Herodotus’ employment of this notion (.., .., .., .., ..,

What Needs to Be In: Historical Obligation and Apollonius



Egyptian story of the pharaoh Rhampsinitus’ descent into the underworld and its legacy in Egyptian ritual (Hdt. .) with the statement that ‘it has been established as a rule for me that throughout my account I record whatever is said to me by each individual source’ (ἐμοὶ δὲ παρὰ πάντα τὸν λόγον ὑπόκειται ὅτι τὰ λεγόμενα ὑπ’ ἑκάστων ἀκοῇ γράφω, ..). Such ‘historiographical obligation’ is part of Herodotus’ historiographical persona which can be emphasised (or de-emphasised) according to the requirements of the narrative, since Herodotus is capable of the ostentatious omission of some details which one might have expected to form part of his obligation to include ‘whatever is told’ (cf. Hdt. ..), as in book  when he deliberately leaves out the names of the Greeks he knows to claim the theory of metempsychosis as their own (τῶν ἐγὼ εἰδὼς τὰ οὐνόματα οὐ γράφω, Hdt. ..). Similarly there is a strongly rhetorical flavour to Herodotus’ claims that he is constrained by his method to include unpopular material when he declares his opinion that the Athenians can rightly be called the saviours of Greeks (from Xerxes’ Persians), in part designed to emphasise the controversial character of what follows (Hdt. ..). Nevertheless, the language of compulsion in such passages is clear (ὑπόκειται, Hdt. ..; ἀναγκαίῃ, Hdt. ..) and underlines the fact that Herodotus can present himself as not having complete freedom with regard to his historical narrative, within the terms of the inquiry he has set himself. Apollonius also sometimes presents himself as (unHomerically) under a compulsion to include certain elements in his narrative, adapting the notion of historiographical obligation we have seen in Herodotus, but with some crucial transformations. Following the death of Idmon in book , the Apollonian narrator appears constrained to include the details of its aetiological aftermath:



 



.., .., .., .., .., ..), Boedeker : –, Munson : –, Luraghi : –. See Lateiner :  on further examples of such statements at .., ., .., .., ... Cf. also the statement attached to the different accounts of how the Arabian king supplied water for Cambyses’ crossing of the desert into Egypt: οὗτος μὲν ὁ πιθανώτερος τῶν λόγων εἴρηται, δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὸν ἧσσον πιθανόν, ἐπεί γε δὴ λέγεται, ῥηθῆναι (‘This is the most plausible of the stories told, but it is necessary to mention the less plausible one also, since it is told’, Hdt. ..). See Lateiner : – on Herodotus’ explicit omissions. See Lateiner : –. Cf. also the similar use of the notion of historiographical obligation when discussing the different accounts of Argive interaction with the Persians: ἐγὼ δὲ ὀφείλω λέγειν τὰ λεγόμενα, πείθεσθαί γε μὲν οὐ παντάπασιν ὀφείλω, καί μοι τοῦτο τὸ ἔπος ἐχέτω ἐς πάντα λόγον. (‘I have a duty to declare what is said to me, but believing these things is in no way my duty, and let this statement hold for the whole of my account’, Hdt. ..). Cf. Boedeker : , ‘Herodotus is free but not entirely free’.



Creating Authorities εἰ δέ με καὶ τὸ χρειὼ ἀπηλεγέως Μουσέων ὕπο γηρύσασθαι, τόνδε πολισσοῦχον διεπέφραδε Βοιωτοῖσιν Νισαίοισί τε Φοῖβος ἐπιρρήδην ἱλάεσθαι, ἀμφὶ δὲ τήνδε φάλαγγα παλαιγενέος κοτίνοιο ἄστυ βαλεῖν, οἱ δ᾽ ἀντὶ θεουδέος Αἰολίδαο Ἴδμονος εἰσέτι νῦν Ἀγαμήστορα κυδαίνουσι.

(A.R. . )

If I must speak openly of this too, in obedience to the Muses, Phoebus clearly told the Nisaeans and Boeotians to worship this man as protector of the city, and to found a city around this trunk of ancient olive, but they in the place of god fearing Aeolid Idmon right up to this day give honours to Agamestor.

The traditional framework of Homeric epic is here recalled but distorted: the creation of the tomb of Idmon (A.R. .–) strongly resembles that of Elpenor in the Odyssey, we meet here the Muses for the first time in the epic since the opening of the poem in their traditional role as the goddesses of epic narrative, and the diction the narrator employs develops that of assertive speakers in Homer. The word ἀπηλεγέως (‘openly’) has strong associations in Homer with blunt, potentially dangerous speech: it is used by Achilles (at Il. .) in response to Odysseus just before Achilles makes his famous declaration that he hates like the gates of Hades the man who says one thing but thinks another (Il. .–) and by Telemachus (emboldened by Athena) of his intention to command the suitors he orders to assemble in the morning to depart (Od. .). But Apollonius’ narrator is much more hesitant and the development of Herodotean historiographical obligation is key to the effect produced and the consequent distancing from the Homeric epics. The Argonautica’s narrator puts his obligation in the form of a conditional (‘if I must . . .’) about whether he should speak, making him much more diffident than Homeric speakers who use ἀπηλεγέως but also than the Herodotean narrator, who does not express such doubts about his   



I follow (e.g.) Seaton :  and Hutchinson :  in taking Μουσέων ὕπο with χρειώ. On Apollonius’ possible sources here see Fränkel : , Vian : , Fowler : . See Mooney  ad loc., Vian : , Dufner : . The Homeric Elpenor (Od. .–) is another expedition’s crew-member who (like Idmon) will not make it home, and hopes that his σῆμα on the ‘shore of the grey sea’ (πολιῆς ἐπὶ θινὶ θαλάσσης) will mean future generations will learn about him (ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι, Od. ., in the same metrical sedes as ὀψιγόνοισιν ἰδέσθαι, A.R. .). But the nature of Homeric epic means such traces are not in fact left behind: cf. the anticipated destruction of the Greek wall by Apollo and Poseidon at Il. .–. Elpenor’s σῆμα will not commemorate him, and neither does Idmon’s, if the honours paid to Agamestor (A.R. .) extend, as seems likely, to thinking the tomb is his. They appear as characters in a narrative digression at A.R. .–. See Morrison : –.

What Needs to Be In: Historical Obligation and Apollonius



narrative obligations. The effect of these differences is underlined by the nature of the error the Apollonian narrator reports in the practice of the Boeotians and Nisaeans. Despite Apollo’s instructions to them, they do not worship Idmon but Agamestor as their city-guardian. In other words, they are unable (correctly) to read the σῆμα of Idmon’s tomb topped with a wild olive tree-trunk (ἐκ κοτίνοιο φάλαγξ, A.R. ., cf. ), though this is explicitly ὀψιγόνοισιν ἰδέσθαι (‘for future generations to see’, A.R. .). Here, as elsewhere in the Argonautica, the characters reflect the narrator: the Nisaeans and Boeotians misread their σῆμα, which raises in readers’ minds the possibility that the now diffident Argonautic narrator might misread his σήματα, some of which at least are similar to those left to mark the deathplace of Idmon, such as the wild oak trees (φηγοὶ . . . ἀγριάδες), also placed on the coast (A.R. . ~ .), which the narrator asserts testify to their bewitchment by Orpheus (.–). The fact that the narrator also mentions the Muses, traditional guarantors of the authority of epic narrators (ἴστέ τε πάντα, Il. .), having not previously presented them in such a role, and does so in a manner which casts doubt on his control of the narrative (‘if I must . . . in obedience to the Muses’, A.R. .), marks a significant modification of Herodotean historiographical obligation. The effect on readers’ perception of the respective Herodotean and Apollonian narrators is very different: in Herodotus, statements of historiographical obligation can be used as one aspect of the creation of an authoritative historiographical personality who has employed a consistent, rational method in his inquiry into the events of the past; in Apollonius such statements can be used instead to emphasise the narrator’s lack of certainty as to what should or should not be included in the narrative, and to raise the question of his control over the reading of signs. Here again he seems markedly distant from the Herodotean ‘master of signs’. It is also important to emphasise the interaction in Apollonius of the historiographical mode with epic language: unlike in Homer (where the word can mean both ‘sign’ and ‘tomb’), the word σῆμα never has the sense of ‘sign’ in Herodotus, so its use in Apollonius to evoke the historiographical mode encapsulates the Argonautica’s encompassing of elements of the discourse of historiography within the framework of traditional epic vocabulary, while at the same time producing an effect on the readers’ expectations of the epic very different from that of the epic modello-codice.  

 See further on this passage pp. – above. See pp. – above. Hollmann : –. See Hollmann : – on Herodotus’ semiotic vocabulary.



Creating Authorities

In large part the Argonautic narrator’s uncertainty at .– reflects the travails of the Argonauts, who lose first Idmon and then Tiphys in quick succession. The particular effect of the disquieting information the narrator provides about the failure of future generations to recognise and worship Idmon in the role prescribed for him by Apollo forms a local example of the situation Jason foresees for the Argonauts as a whole if they do not reach Aietes and then return to Greece: ‘right here a wretched doom will hide us without glory, growing old uselessly’, (καταυτόθι δ’ ἄμμε καλύψει | ἀκλειῶς κακὸς οἶτος ἐτώσια γηράσκοντας, A.R. .–). Idmon, of course, has not reached Aietes and is buried καταυτόθι, and from the perspective of the future inhabitants of Heraclea, he is ἀκλειῶς, since they worship Agamestor in his place. Here we can see how the echoes of Herodotean historiographical discourse at this point are used to underline the desperation of the Argonauts and make their situation seem bleaker still. Another instructive adaptation of Herodotean historiographical obligation is also connected to a ‘sign’ left by the journey of the Argonauts. The shrine of Hecate built by the Argonauts endures at the mouth of the river Halys: τό γε μὴν ἕδος ἐξέτι κείνου, | ὅ ῥα θεᾷ ἥρωες ἐπὶ ῥηγμῖσιν ἔδειμαν, | ἀνδράσιν ὀψιγόνοισι μένει καὶ τῆμος ἰδέσθαι (‘. . . but from that time the shrine which the heroes constructed for the goddess on the shoreline persists even until now for later generations to see’, A.R. .–). There is a marked similarity with the earlier mention of Idmon’s tomb (ὀψιγόνοισι . . . ἰδέσθαι ~ ὀψιγόνοισιν ἰδέσθαι, A.R. .) and its characterisation of the narrator’s diffidence, but the narrator’s relationship with with an external compulsion to include material in the narrative is even more uncertain here. The Argonauts have stopped to propitiate Hecate, but the narrator appears to be concerned about what he might reveal of the rites performed: καὶ δὴ τὰ μέν, ὅσσα θυηλὴν κούρη πορσανέουσα τιτύσκετο, μήτε τις ἴστωρ εἴη, μήτ’ ἐμὲ θυμὸς ἐποτρύνειεν ἀείδειν. ἅζομαι αὐδῆσαι· (A.R. . )

 

  See Morrison : –. Livrea : . Cf. Livrea : , Vian : . There is also a clear general resemblance between passages such as A.R. .– and .– (where the Apollonian narrator breaks off from telling the rites performed by the Argonauts on Samothrace) and the ‘pious silences’ of Herodotus, where he expresses an unwillingness to go into details on divine matters (τὰ . . . θεῖα), as he does at the beginning of book  (Hdt. ..) Cf. also e.g. .., .., ..–, .. and see further Lateiner : –, –. At A.R. .– the Apollonian narrator expresses his decision not to proceed further in a more confident manner, itself reminiscent of the manner of the Herodotean narrator (οὐ προτέρω μυθήσομαι, A.R. . ~ οὐκ εἰμὶ πρόθυμος ἐξηγέεσθαι, Hdt. ..).

What Needs to Be In: Historical Obligation and Apollonius



And as for those things which the girl prepared to perform the sacrifice, may no one learn of them, may my heart not urge me to sing of them. I shrink from telling.

The characterisation of desire or emotion is epic in its presentation of desire as an externalised force, but in its application to himself by a narrator it also transforms the presentation of narrative obligation in Herodotus. Here the narrator’s relationship with a sense of external, narrative obligation is presented as much more problematic than it was on Idmon’s tomb in book . He is presented as not wanting to relate what Medea did, but worries that his θυμός (‘heart’) may nevertheless urge him to sing of it. Where the Herodotean narrator is able to present himself as largely in control of his narrative desire, as when he makes clear his unwillingness to discuss divine matters at length (cf. οὐκ εἰμὶ πρόθυμος, Hdt. ..), except where required to do so by the constraints of his account, here the Apollonian narrator seems to lack even enough control to resist his own internal urges, thus undermining the sense that he is in control of the narrative he is relating. In Herodotus the narrator’s desire and the obligations of historiography are clearly separate, but they become fused in Apollonius as an external force he cannot control. In the explicit omission of the details of the rites Medea performs there is a parallel with the effect on readers of Herodotus of some explicit omissions, namely to prompt speculation on the matters left out of the account (cf. the names of the Greeks who claim metempsychosis as their own, Hdt. .., in which readers were likely to see Pythagoras and Empedocles) or further to emphasise the horror or terror of the omitted matters, again in part by prompting wonder as to the precise character of those details left out: a good example of the latter is the passing over the details of Polycrates’ killing at Hdt. .. as οὐκ ἀξίως ἀπηγήσιος (‘not worthy of telling’), where the omission serves to lead readers to speculate that the murder must have been as brutal as the treatment of the corpse (which was impaled). In Apollonius the effect is in part to hint at the 





Cf. e.g. τότε δ’ αὖτε μαχήσεται ὁππότε κέν μιν | θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἀνώγῃ καὶ θεὸς ὄρσῃ (‘He will fight again when the heart in his breast urges him and a god drives him to’, Il. .–, Diomedes on Achilles). On θυμός in Homer see Sullivan , Caswell , Robinson . Callimachus in the Aetia uses θυμός to characterise his desire to hear more from the Muses: τὼ]ς ̣ μὲν ἔφη· τὰς δ’ εἶθαρ ἐμὸς ̣ πάλιν εἴρε̣ το ̣ θυμός (‘So she spoke. And at once my heart asked them again’, fr. b Pf.). Note the use at A.R. . of ἴστωρ (‘one who knows’, ‘knowing’), a cognate of ἱστορίη, as if to underline the inversion of the Herodotean manner there. Hunter : , however, compares Call. Aetia fr. .– (n.b. ἱστορίην, v. ) as ‘particularly close’ to the Apollonian passage. Asheri et al. : .



Creating Authorities

power of Medea, given her connection with Hecate both here and earlier in the epic (.–, .–, .–), and perhaps to suggest that her status as a witch is of growing importance in the epic and its aftermath (Medea is described as a future κακόν for Pelias’ house at A.R. .), as it will be (for example) when Medea brings down Talos with her magic at the end of book  (–).

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge It would be greatly misleading to give the impression that the various prominent elements of historiographical discourse in Herodotus we have examined have the sole purpose of convincing the readers that the Herodotean narrator is a reliable and authoritative figure whose account can be straightforwardly regarded as ‘the truth’. The problem of sources is not simply raised so that it can be solved by Herodotus’ persona as a careful, intelligent enquirer. Much recent Herodotean scholarship has demonstrated the ways in which Herodotus is acutely aware of the limits of his own knowledge, the knowability of the past, the reasons why particular individuals acted as they did, and so forth. Carolyn Dewald, for example, has shown how Herodotus uses the persona he creates in the Histories precisely to emphasise the difficulty of the task he has set himself, and to underline that the knowledge one can have about the past is often at best partial and provisional. It is in this light that we should view such features of Herodotean discourse as the commenting on the limitations of the narrator’s knowledge, the provision of alternative explanations which cannot be decided between, and the calling into question the truth of the accounts offered, as in the statement about the cause of Polycrates’ death: αἰτίαι μὲν δὴ αὗται διφάσιαι λέγονται τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ Πολυκράτεος γενέσθαι, πάρεστι δὲ πείθεσθαι ὁκοτέρῃ τις βούλεται αὐτέων (‘These are the two reasons people give for death of Polycrates.

 





On Medea’s power and her association with Hecate see esp. Clare : – and also Hunter : –, : –. On Medea’s killing of Talos, see Hunter :  and on her ominous, increasing power in the latter part of the Argonautica see Clare : –, Powers . For the Talos episode as evoking the Cyclops episode in Odyssey , see Dufner : –. See Dewald : esp. –, , Munson : . See also Darbo-Peschanski : –, who argues for the ultimately provisional and particular character of Herodotus’ historical narrative, which remains a matter of (informed) opinion rather than objective truth.  See pp. – above. See Dewald : –. See also pp. – and n.  above.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



You can believe whichever you prefer’, Hdt. ..). And this awareness of a Herodotus keen to stress the difficulties involved in the writing of history and the recording of the past has been fruitfully explored with regard to the motivation of the human protagonists in Herodotus by Emily Baragwanath, who has demonstrated the degree to which Herodotus frequently emphasises the limited character of his access to and knowledge of the minds of the characters in his narrative. The motivation behind Oroetes’ hostility to Polycrates (which leads to the latter’s death) is a good example of the problems involved in knowing the minds of others. But, as Rosalind Thomas has pointed out, the diffident enquirer is not the only character the Herodotean persona can display: sometimes there is a much more polemical and argumentative voice to be found in some parts of the Histories. A good example is the dismissive treatment of the maps of the world which some of Herodotus’ predecessors and peers have attempted: γελῶ δὲ ὁρέων γῆς περιόδους γράψαντας πολλοὺς ἤδη καὶ οὐδένα νόον ἐχόντως ἐξηγησάμενον· οἳ Ὠκεανόν τε ῥέοντα γράφουσι πέριξ τὴν γῆν ἐοῦσαν κυκλοτερέα ὡς ἀπὸ τόρνου, καὶ τὴν Ἀσίην τῇ Εὐρώπῃ ποιεύντων ἴσην. ἐν ὀλίγοισι γὰρ ἐγὼ δηλώσω μέγαθός τε ἑκάστης αὐτέων καὶ οἵη τις ἐστὶ ἐς γραφὴν ἑκάστη. (Hdt. ..) I laugh when I see the many people who have drawn maps of the world with none having explained it sensibly. They draw Ocean flowing around the earth in a circle as if made by compasses, and they make Asia the same size as Europe. I’ll make clear in few words the magnitude of each of these and how each should be drawn.

Thomas connects this polemical style of Herodotus and his use of the language of demonstration and proof, and that of truth and correctness, with the discourse of public intellectual debate in the fifth century, and speculates about the possible consequences for our view of the original circumstances of the delivery of Herodotus. Issues of Herodotean

    

Cf. Dewald : . See also Munson : – for the parallels between Herodotus’ handling of conflicting accounts and judicial arbitration.  See Baragwanath : esp. ch. . See Baragwanath : – and pp. – below. See Thomas : –, explicitly building (at –) on Dewald  by adducing a number of enlightening parallels for aspects of Herodotus’ first-person statements. Thomas compares also Hdt. .., .., ... Thomas : –. See further on the ‘performance’ of Herodotus Thomas : –, Fowler : –.



Creating Authorities

public recitation fall outside the scope of this book; for our purposes what is important is the way in which Apollonius makes use of the different aspects of the Herodotean persona. We do not find an explicitly polemical attitude on the part of the Apollonian narrator as to particular versions of events or earlier treatments of particular stories; rather the emphasis is on the integration of previous stories into a coherent whole: νῆα μὲν οὖν οἱ πρόσθεν ἔτι κλείουσιν ἀοιδοὶ | Ἄργον Ἀθηναίης καμέειν ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν (‘earlier bards still sing that Argos made it according to Athena’s instructions’, A.R. .–), which is then closely echoed later in the Catalogue (αὐτὴ γὰρ καὶ νῆα θοὴν κάμε· σὺν δέ οἱ Ἄργος | τεῦξεν Ἀρεστορίδης κείνης ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν, ‘she herself made the swift ship, and with her Argos, son of Arestor, built it, according to her instructions’, A.R. .–). The songs of these earlier bards, in common with the other sources implied in the Catalogue (cf. κλείουσιν ἀοιδοὶ, ‘bards sing’, A.R. .), are not rejected but combined into the Argonautica itself. The Apollonian narrator does not reject other poetic versions of his narrative in a polemical manner and any disagreement with other texts or authors is only subtly implied, rather than being explicit. In the Catalogue, for example, he simply notes that Idmon is not ‘truly’ the son of Abas (A.R. .), without identifying or indicating that a particular source is mistaken. So too in book  when the narrator describes the social structure of the Amazons he does so in a way which suggests a possible correction, but leaves unspecific which source has gone awry: οὐ γὰρ ὁμηγερέες μίαν ἂμ πόλιν, ἀλλ’ ἀνὰ γαῖαν κεκριμέναι κατὰ φῦλα διάτριχα ναιετάασκον·

(A.R. . )

Because they didn’t live gathered together in a single city but across the land, divided into three tribes.

The avoidance of polemic with regard to the sources of the main narrative is underscored by the rare occasions when the Apollonian narrator does display a more aggressive, polemical attitude, as he does with regard to some of the stories told by his own characters, most prominently the false version of the disappearance of the Lemnian men told to Jason by Hypsipyle. The true version of events is given by the narrator before we hear from Hypsipyle and marked by the use of strong evaluative terms  

See p.  above and cf. the similar treatment of Eurytion and Erybotes (.–) and Palaemonius (.). See Morrison : .

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



(e.g. .–: ἄμυδις πᾶς δῆμος ὑπερβασίῃσι γυναικῶν | νηλειῶς δέδμητο, ‘all at once the whole population was pitilessly killed by the transgressions of the women’; cf. λευγαλέοιο φόνου, ‘heinous murder’, .) and an emotional exclamation by the narrator (.: ὦ μέλεαι, ζήλοιό τ’ ἐπισμυγερῶς ἀκόρητοι, ‘O wretched women, miserably insatiate in their jealousy’). Hypsipyle’s version is then glossed as an attempt to conceal the truth of the murder (.–: ἴσκεν, ἀμαλδύνουσα φόνου τέλος, οἷον ἐτύχθη | ἀνδράσιν, ‘she spoke, softening the deed of murder which had been done against the men’). The absence of an argumentative, polemical persona from the Argonautica with regard to the narrator’s apparent sources is also evident in the contrast between the use in Apollonius and Herodotus of the language of proof, demonstration and truth. In Herodotus we find the widespread use of explicit claims of demonstration or proof using ἀποδείκνυμι (‘demonstrate’), e.g. when Herodotus is attacking the views of those who think that Egypt is only the Nile Delta. If one holds this position, ‘we can show by this argument that in the past the Egyptians had no country’ (ἀποδεικνύοιμεν ἂν τούτῳ τῷ λόγῳ χρεώμενοι Αἰγυπτίοισι οὐκ ἐοῦσαν πρότερον χώρην, Hdt. ..), since the Delta is recent, alluvial land. Such language can also be used of Herodotus’ own positive demonstrations, e.g. μαρτυρέει δέ μοι τῇ γνώμῃ, ὅτι τοσαύτη ἐστὶ Αἴγυπτος ὅσην τινὰ ἐγὼ ἀποδείκνυμι τῷ λόγῳ, καὶ τὸ Ἄμμωνος χρηστήριον γενόμενον (‘The oracle given by Ammon also testifies to my judgement that Egypt is the size I show it to be in my argument’, Hdt. ..). In fact, as Rosalind Thomas has shown, Herodotus makes use of ἀποδείκνυμι or its cognates  times, and also makes regular use of the language of truth or ‘correctness’ (ὀρθός, ὀρθῶς) with reference to views of which he approves (e.g. ὀρθῶς, ‘correctly’), Hdt. .., .., of the common Greek account of the Dorian kings; ὀρθῷ (‘correct’), Hdt. .., of his own reasoning on this matter). Apollonius, on the other hand, does not employ with reference to his own narrative cognates of ἀποδείκνυμι (‘demonstrate’), ὀρθός (‘correct’), ἀληθής (‘true’) or even λόγος (‘word’,

  



On this language in Herodotus, see the important treatment by Thomas : –.  Cf. the similar use of ἀποδείκνυμι at Hdt. ... Thomas : –. See Thomas : –, who gives further examples, e.g. .., ., .., .., .., .., .., .., ... There are, of course, a number of words covering the notion of ‘truth’ in Herodotus (Thomas : ). Where ὀρθός appears it has the meaning ‘upright’ (A.R. ., ., etc.) or ‘pricked’ (of ears, A.R. ., .).



Creating Authorities

‘speech’, ‘argument’) in the Argonautica. The aspects of historiographical, especially Herodotean, discourse which are employed in the Argonautica are not those which recall the polemical, argumentative persona which Herodotus sometimes adopts and which can prove and disprove various propositions of his own or others, but the relatively modest, careful enquirer (also sometimes adopted by Herodotus) piecing together his account from the available evidence, in his case the clues left behind by the Argonauts and the songs of earlier poets. Where Apollonius’ narrator does employ the wider vocabulary of ‘truth’ (ἐτήτυμος, ἐτεός, νημερτής, ἀτρεκές and their cognates) he is noticeably more diffident than Herodotus often is when making claims to truth. Such language can (for example) mark correct or incorrect perceptions by characters (e.g. A.R. . νημερτές, . νημερτές, . ἐτήτυμον), the clarity or convincing nature of the images on Jason’s cloak (A.R. . ἀτρεκές, . ἐτεόν), and the truth of Hera’s report of Jason and Medea’s marriage (νημερτέα βάξιν, A.R. .), but it is not employed in explicit claims to the truth of the narrator’s account over those of others. On some occasions there is an implied correction of potential misapprehensions, as in the statement that there ‘only one true spring’ of the river Thermodon (μία δ’ οἴη ἐτήτυμος ἔπλετο πηγή, A.R. .), which is difficult to perceive because of the river’s ninety-six streams. The nearest we come to an explicit judgement of the truth of a source or piece of evidence is in the statement which prefaces the story of the carrying of the Argo: Μουσάων ὅδε μῦθος· ἐγὼ δ’ ὑπακουὸς ἀείδω Πιερίδων, καὶ τήνδε πανατρεκὲς ἔκλυον ὀμφήν . . .

(A.R. . )



   

λόγος appears only once in Apollonius, at .. Generic considerations will have been important here, of course: λόγος appears only once in each of the Iliad and the Odyssey (Il. ., Od. .), both times in the dative plural. Its appearance at A.R. . is in the same metrical position as in the Od. example (and in the usage at h.Merc. ). The context in the Odyssey is the beguiling words of Calypso to Odysseus, that of the Homeric hymn Hermes’ attempts to deceive Apollo, so the use in A.R. is pointed, since the phrase αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισι (‘beguiling words’) is reproduced from those earlier occurrences and used of Medea’s delight at Jason’s words. See in general Giubilo : –. Cf. the description of Triton’s ‘true’ (ἐτήτυμος) appearance at A.R. .. Cf. A.R. . on Idmon’s true (ἐτήτυμον) parentage, . on Lynceus’ eyesight (ἐτεόν), and see also above for both passages. Cf. also the narrator’s question to the Muses at A.R. .– about the signs the Argonauts have left near Italy: πῶς . . . | . . . | . . . Ἀργῴης περιώσια σήματα νηὸς | νημερτὲς πέφαται; (‘how is it that numberless signs of the Argo are clearly spoken of ?’) which suggests the truth of the sources for the σήματα left by the Argonauts. Here there is, however, no suggestion that there are alternative sources which are not ‘true’.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



This tale is the Muses’ and I sing obedient to the Pierides, and I have heard this report too most exactly . . .

The provenance of this story is marked twice (it is the Muses’ story and the narrator sings obedient to the Pierides) and further reinforced by the detail that he has heard it ‘most exactly’ (πανατρεκές), the intensified form appearing for the first time in Greek here, and itself emphasising the strenuousness of the narrator’s claims to truth. Furthermore the beginning of the (very abbreviated) story is then given in a direct address to the Argonauts themselves (.–), as if further to authorise its truth. Although there is no alternative version being explicitly attacked or rejected, the advertising of the narrator’s source here recalls the attribution of particular accounts to given sources in historiography, but in such a way as to complicate the authority apparently being sought. The Muses become, rather than the unambiguous and fundamental source for all aspects of the narrative (as at Il. .–), simply another potential source alongside those employed earlier in the epic, such as the songs of earlier bards, rumour or report (φάτις). They are thus invoked in too desperate a manner to give the readers confidence in the truth of the account. The sidelining of the Muses at the beginning of the epic has led to an epic voice which cannot simply rely on their unquestioned authority as goddesses of song and has instead to insist on the reliability of their information. Claims to the establishment of truth such as those we have seen in Herodotus are thus turned on their heads, as the claim to truth in the Argonautica serves to undermine itself. Both epic and historiographical modes for constructing authority are thus here simultaneously combined and undercut. It is not only facts of geography or past events or complete narratives which raise the question of the limits of a narrator’s knowledge (and the sources of that knowledge). In both Apollonius and Herodotus what characters think or feel (or do not think or feel) are used to prompt us to consider how the narrator has obtained his knowledge of these emotions or motivations. In Apollonius, for example, the very first example of  

  

Mooney  ad loc. Cf. esp. the very similar statement at Hdt. .. about ὅδε ὁ μῦθος (~ ὅδε μῦθος, A.R. .), part of Herodotus’ rejection of a silly tale the Greeks tell about Heracles, one of only two appearances of the word μῦθος in Herodotus. See Feeney : –, Morrison : . See pp. – above and cf. Dufner : – on the combination of rationalising and fabulous perspectives in the Argonautica. Something similar is also true of the speeches of characters, since we might very often wonder how an epic narrator could possibly know about some conversations (e.g. those of gods with one another), without a source such as the Muses. Similar questions arise in historiography, the



Creating Authorities

direct speech in the epic concerns the motivation of one of its characters, when we are told the reaction of the crowd on seeing the gathered Argonauts before their voyage: ὧδε δ’ ἕκαστος ἔννεπεν εἰσορόων σὺν τεύχεσιν ἀίσσοντας· “Ζεῦ ἄνα, τίς Πελίαο νόος; πόθι τόσσον ὅμιλον ἡρώων γαίης Παναχαιίδος ἔκτοθι βάλλει; . . .”

(A.R. . )

Each one spoke as follows on seeing them rushing in their armour: ‘Lord Zeus, what is the intention of Pelias? Where beyond the land of All Greece is he sending such a great crowd of heroes? . . .’

Here the speech is a repeated one (what each person says), rather than the utterance of one individual (which perhaps raises the question of how accurate a report it can give of any one example of a character expressing these opinions), and the first example of a recurring pattern in the Argonautica, where one character speculates about the unclear intentions of another. Jason’s frequent silences in the epic make him particularly likely to be questioned in this way, as when Idas challenges him to reveal his thoughts after the Argonauts have learnt what Idmon’s fate will be (τίνα τήνδε μετὰ φρεσὶ μῆτιν ἑλίσσεις, | αὔδα ἐν μέσσοισι τεὸν νόον, ‘what’s this plan you’re whirling in your mind? Speak your thoughts openly’, Α.R. .–). The mode earlier used to relate Pelias’ motivations to the external audience further underlines the opacity of his motivations to the other characters in the narrative: αἶψα δὲ τόνγ’ ἐσιδὼν ἐφράσσατο, καί οἱ ἄεθλον ἔντυε ναυτιλίης πολυκηδέος, ὄφρ’ ἐνὶ πόντῳ ἠὲ καὶ ἀλλοδαποῖσι μετ’ ἀνδράσι νόστον ὀλέσσῃ. (A.R. . )

Straightaway on seeing this man he plotted, and prepared for him the task of a woeful sea voyage, so that on the sea or among foreign men he would lose his return home.

 



speeches in which are a matter of long debate (see e.g. Laird : –), though it seems clear that ancient readers to will have expected a degree of ‘imaginative reconstruction’ in these (so Baragwanath : ). Cf. Feeney : . See Mori a: – on Idas speculating about silent Jason at .–, and in general see Beye : –, –, –, Fantuzzi & Hunter : – on the lack of motivation for the Argonautica’s characters and their problematic silences. See Hunter : –. Cf. also A.R. .– where Telamon interprets Jason’s silence at .– on realising the Argonauts have left Heracles behind as revealing a plan of Jason’s deliberately to abandon Heracles to gain greater kleos himself. See Mori , b: –.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



Pelias’ thought-process is mentioned very briefly and in such a way as to allow no deliberation (n.b. αἶψα, ‘straightaway’), and the indirectness here extends even to the announcement of the voyage itself (οἱ ἄεθλον | ἔντυε ναυτιλίης, ‘he prepared for him the task of a sea-voyage’), which gestures towards the fact that Pelias’ true purpose is concealed from the Argonauts and the other characters in the epic. In this particular case we (the readers of the epic) know more than the other characters about what Pelias’ intentions are, which is the situation which obtains (for the most part) in the Homeric epics: the audiences of the poems know more about what is driving the mortal characters (and the gods) than the characters do themselves. But in the Argonautica as a whole the readers are given much less information about the motivations (and precise emotions) of the characters than in Homer. We are in fact often in a position akin to that of Idas when confronted with Jason’s silence in book . In that very passage, indeed, the narrator provides us with little more information than Idas himself possesses: Jason is ἀμήχανος (‘helpless’, ‘without a plan’, .), but the precise meaning of this is unclear: this is the first appearance of the word in the poem. Jason is also described as κατηφιόωντι ἐοικώς (‘like a man in despair’, .) and as ‘pondering each thing’ (πορφύρεσκεν ἕκαστα, .), but these descriptions leave his precise emotional state open to interpretation by the external audience as well as by his fellow Argonauts. Is he really in despair or does he merely have this appearance? What is the significance of his consideration of ‘each thing’ (to find a solution or as a further sign of his hopelessness)? The reader’s perspective can be assimilated to that of one of the characters even more closely, as when after the Argo has passed through the Clashing Rocks in book  Jason speaks to Tiphys with (the narrator tells us) μειλιχίοις ἐπέεσι (‘soft words’, .). During his speech Jason portrays himself as believing that he has committed a terrible mistake in undertaking the Argonautic voyage (cf. κακὴν καὶ ἀμήχανον ἄτην, ‘a terrible and 



 

Contrast (e.g.) the kind of externalised private speech which reveals in Homer (at crucial narrative moments) the private emotions and inner conflict of certain characters (e.g. Odysseus at Od. .– or Hector in Il. .–). See Richardson : –. In Homer characters can be mistaken about what motivates other characters: e.g. the suitors who think that Telemachus intends by his journey to gather forces against them (Od. .–); see in general Baragwanath : –. And sometimes in Homer precise emotions/motivations can be opaque to the audience, as in the reasons for Odysseus’ concealment of his identity from Laertes after the slaughter of the suitors (Od. .–). See further Baragwanath : –. See Fantuzzi & Hunter : –. See further Hunter : – on the openness of the comparison here: is Jason really in despair or does he only seem to be so?



Creating Authorities

extraordinary error’, .). It is only after the speech that it becomes clear this is a test (ὣς φάτ’ ἀριστήων πειρώμενος, ‘so he spoke testing the leaders’, .), which the Argonauts pass by responding ‘with courageous words’ (θαρσαλέοις ἐπέεσσιν, .). But the initial statement about Jason’s ‘soft words’ gave no hint that this was a test, so that during the speech itself the readers know as little as the Argonauts about Jason’s intentions. It is striking that in the Homeric analogue of this scene, Agamemnon’s testing of the troops in Iliad  (the peira), we learn of Agamemnon’s intentions before he subjects his troops to their test (πειρήσομαι, ‘I shall test them’, Il. .). The effect is to raise doubts in the reader’s mind about the soundness of Jason’s judgement and leadership: Jason addresses his test at Tiphys, the Argo’s helmsman, and accuses him of being concerned only for his own welfare (.), in contrast to Jason’s concern with ‘every detail’ (τὰ ἕκαστα, .) and the safe return of all of the crew (.–). But Tiphys’ role on the ship seems an unlikely one in which to find selfishness, which suggests poor judgement on Jason’s part. This is not entirely overcome when we learn that Jason’s accusations were in fact a test, since Jason then goes on to claim that he is of the view that there will be no similar terror in the future (τοιόνδ’ ἕτερον φόβον, .), which points to his ignorance of the future (since the journey home will feature a very similar challenge indeed, the Planctae: .–), but also his naivety, since the Argonauts have not even reached the destination of their outward journey and many aethloi (and deaths) await them. The Argonauts respond encouragingly to Jason (θαρσαλέοις ἐπέεσσιν, .), but readers should perhaps be less confident. Opacity with regard to the motivation of characters spreads to the narrator himself. Towards the end of book  he himself asks what the reasons were behind Phineus’ instructions to the Argonauts to put in at the island of Ares in words which are strikingly similar to those used by the people of Thessaly with regard to Pelias’ motivation (τίς Πελίαο νόος; ‘What is the intention of Pelias?’, A.R. .): τίς γὰρ δὴ Φινῆος ἔην νόος, ἐνθάδε κέλσαι | ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖον στόλον; (‘What then was the intention of Phineus in landing the divine band of heroes here?’, A.R. .–). Here too we find a striking departure from Homeric   

On parallels between Agamemnon’s peira and Jason’s, see Hunter : –. This further emphasises the parallels (and contrasts) with Odysseus’ conspicuous lack of success in getting his crew home. See Hunter : , who points out how vital Tiphys is in fact to the crew and the expedition, as his later death and the Argonauts’ subsequent desperation emphasises.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



precedent: in Homer such questions, whether with the addressee unspecified (as here) or directed at the Muses by name, are always about matters of narrative fact, especially the progress of the battle. In no case does the narrator ask the Muses (or anyone else) about the motivation of one of the characters in his narrative. In this particular case the narrator’s question articulates the likely feelings of the Argonauts as well as the audience, but it is important from our perspective because it anticipates the narrator’s uncertainty about a character’s motivation which is (famously) foregrounded at the start of book  of the Argonautica (and which is quite alien to Homer). At that point the narrator proclaims his inability to determine what emotion caused Medea to flee with the Argonauts, and requests that the Muse therefore undertake the song herself: Αὐτὴ νῦν κάματόν γε, θεά, καὶ δήνεα κούρης Κολχίδος ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, Διὸς τέκος. ἦ γὰρ ἔμοιγε ἀμφασίῃ νόος ἔνδον ἑλίσσεται ὁρμαίνοντι, ἠέ μιν ἄτης πῆμα δυσίμερον, ἦ τό γ’ ἐνίσπω φύζαν ἀεικελίην, ᾗ κάλλιπεν ἔθνεα Κόλχων. (A.R. . )

Now you yourself, goddess, tell of the toil and designs of the Colchian girl, Muse, child of Zeus. For truly my mind whirls within in speechlessness, pondering whether I should say it was love tormented pain of infatuation or shameful flight by which she left the tribes of the Colchians.

This description of the narrator’s speechlessness and uncertainty picks up elements of his own description of Medea in love (cf. e.g. A.R. ., .), but more importantly this raises the issue of the narrator’s knowledge of his characters’ motivations in an extremely prominent position, the beginning of a book. This marks a profound decline in his narrative authority from the confident, self-motivated opening of book , and from the preceding book, where he detailed Medea’s private mental states at length. It also marks the most extreme example of a 



   

Homeric questions to the Muses: Il. ., .–, .–, .., .–; Homeric questions without an explicit addressee (see Minton :  on these too being addressed to the Muses): Il. .–, ., .–. A good example is the question at Il. .–: ἔνθα τίνα πρῶτον, τίνα δ’ ὕστατον ἐξενάριξεν | Ἕκτωρ Πριαμίδης . . .; (‘Whom then was the first and whom the last Hector son of Priam killed . . .?’). Cf. Zyroff : , Paduano & Fusillo : –. Morrison : , Hunter : –. See Hunter : , Hunter : , Morrison : –. See e.g. A.R. .– (discussed below), .–, Feeney : .



Creating Authorities

wider pattern in the poem, of the frequent dependence of the narrator on inferences about why his characters act as they do or what they believe or feel. This is apparent from the narrator’s regular employment of the particle που (‘no doubt’, ‘I suppose’) in connection with the motivation of various characters. For example, in book  when the Argonauts have left the land of the Doliones having been received in friendly fashion by their king, Cyzicus (who had earlier received an oracle urging him to be hospitable to visiting bands of heroes, A.R. .–), the narrator marks his inference about Cyzicus’ likely belief that he was beyond danger from the heroes when he arms himself for battle against apparent nocturnal invaders: ὧς τὸν ὀιόμενόν που ἀδευκέος ἔκτοθεν ἄτης εἶναι ἀριστήων αὐτῇ ὑπὸ νυκτὶ πέδησεν μαρνάμενον κείνοισι·

(A.R. . )

So no doubt thinking he was safe from cruel doom from the heroes that very night fate bound him as he fought with them.

Not every mention of a character’s motivation is so marked, but the particle που is used often enough in this way to stress the Apollonian narrator’s general dependence on evidence, rather in the manner of the σήματα of Orpheus’ song at the beginning of the poem, which suggests the building of a narrative on the basis of inferences from this evidence. The particle is at home in historiography: a fragment of Herodorus of Heraclea uses it to mark a rationalising inference about the Argonautic story (δράκοντες δέ που ἦσαν ἐν τῷ Καυκάσῳ μέγεθος, καὶ μέγεθος καὶ πλῆθος, ‘there were no doubt in the Caucasus wondrously big snakes, both in size and number’, FGrH  F bis = fr. A Fowler). 



 



This is characteristic of historiography: Hunter :  notes that at the beginning of book  Apollonius weighs up the possible motivations ‘like a historian’ (cf. Fränkel : , who notes the historiographical uncertainty about motivation at the beginning of book ), but can only turn to the Muse for help (thus combining the historiographical mode with the traditional authorities of epic). On the epic phraseology at A.R. .– see Livrea : –. In an important discussion, Cuypers :  argues for που functioning as a ‘micro-argument’ indicating an inference based on critical thinking. See also Morrison : – for a detailed examination of this particle in Apollonius. Cf. Morrison :  n. . The particle is used by the primary narrator about the motivation or mental state of characters at A.R. .–, ., ., ., ., ., ., ., while ποθι (‘probably’) is used in a similar sense of motivation at A.R. .. I follow here Fowler’s interpretation (: ) which follows Orth  in correcting the MS reading Ἡρόδοτος in [Demetrius], On Style (from which this fragment derives), to Ἡρόδωρος, but attributes που to Herodorus.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



Herodotus too employs κου (the Ionic equivalent of που) inferentially on some occasions, as when he prefaces a quotation of what the Paeonians said at the crucial moment of their conflict with the Perinthians with εἶπάν κου παρὰ σφίσι αὐτοῖσι (‘they must have said to themselves’, Hdt. ..). What matters, however, is not where and how this particle is employed in historiography, but that the indicating of inferences (however achieved) about motivation and the flagging of the uncertainty or difficulty of reconstructing psychological motivation is itself a strong generic marker of historical narrative (in Cohn’s sense). Such devices prompt readers to recall the genre of historiography (and its different norms and structures, etc.) and compare it with the epic being read. This is a further example of the way in which the Argonautica employs elements more familiar from and appropriate to a different genre or mode of discourse to affect its readers’ expectations of what they will find in a narrative. The lack of automatic knowledge of an individual’s mental state is the normal situation for such historical narrative. In Herodotus, for example, the narrator regularly gives alternative possible motivations for the actions of some characters, as when he offers three different reasons for Cyrus’ placing of Croesus (and fourteen Lydian boys) on a pyre (Hdt. ..). In that passage the different possible motivations (which need not exclude one another), are introduced with the eite . . . eite formula which is common in the presentation in Herodotus of alternative motivations. As Fowler has commented on Herodotus, ‘A character’s motive for some action is usually only surmised [my italics] by the historian’, which inference is often indicated by markers such as ‘either . . . or’, ‘perhaps’ or ‘must have’ when discussing the mental states of characters: ‘No matter how fanciful its content, the form of an inferential statement puts a stamp of historicity on the text that contains it’. In Herodotus, as Baragwanath has commented, the narrator is usually in the position of the human narrators of the Homeric poems, particularly Odysseus, who himself often reduces his explanations of the motivations of others to alternatives, and 

   

Cf. also Hdt. .. (the role in a game of one of the boys in Cyrus’ childhood village), .. (the motivation of Phanes), .. (earlier building strategies of some Paeonians). Herodotus uses κου to mark inferences about motivation much less frequently than Apollonius uses που in this way.  See Baragwanath : , . Baragwanath : , –.  Fowler : . Cohn : . Baragwanath : –. See further on this characteristic of the Herodotean narrator de Jong : –, Marincola : –, –, –, Baragwanath & de Bakker b: . E.g. Od. . (on the motivation of Calypso): she sends Odysseus on his way Ζηνὸς ὑπ’ ἀγγελίης, ἢ καὶ νόος ἐτράπετ’ αὐτῆς (‘because of some message from Zeus, or because her mind had changed’).



Creating Authorities

usually documents his sources when he includes information which he could not straightforwardly know, as when he cites Calypso as his source for the conversation between Lampetië and Zeus about the Cattle of the Sun. Precisely the same analogy is drawn by Cohn in articulating the differences between historical and fictional narrative: the narrators of historical narratives are restricted in their knowledge of the motivation of characters in the same way as homodiegetic narrators (those who are themselves characters within a narrative, such as Odysseus in his narrative in Od. –) are restricted with regard to their knowledge of the minds of others. It is this restricted, limited perspective on the minds of characters, usually characteristic of narrators who are themselves characters within the world of the narrative or historians trying to piece together a narrative from the limited evidence which can be gathered about what really happened and what people really thought, which Apollonius often adopts in the Argonautica. The limits of his knowledge are perhaps clearest at the beginning of book , but the limited perspective strongly reminiscent of the attitude adopted by historiographical narrators, especially Herodotus, is implied even in the fact that he marks several reports of the motivation of his characters as inferences. Ancient historiographers, however, we should note, do not always employ this limited perspective on motivation. In the first extended narrative in Herodotus, for example he seems to be able to access the minds of the protagonists without much difficulty. Candaules ‘fell in love’ (ἠράσθη, Hdt. ..) with his own wife, and ‘thought’ (ἐνόμιζε, Hdt. ..) her the most beautiful woman of all, while Gyges (after Candaules has instructed him to see his wife naked) ‘was afraid in case some evil should come to him from it’ (ἀρρωδέων μή τί οἱ ἐξ αὐτῶν γένηται κακόν, Hdt. ..). The narrator also knows of the wife’s ‘shame’ (αἰσχυνθεῖσα) and that ‘she intended to punish Candaules’ (ἐν νόῳ ἔχουσα τίσεσθαι τὸν Κανδαύλεα, Hdt. ..), and of Gyges’ ignorance of the wife’s awareness of her husband’s transgression (Hdt. ..). Here   

 See de Jong : –, Scodel : –, Baragwanath : . Od. .. Cohn : –. See, e.g., de Jong , Dewald : , Baragwanath & de Bakker b:  on Herodotus’ employment of a narrator reminiscent of Homer’s omniscient narrator; see Griffiths , Baragwanath & de Bakker b: – for Herodotus’ use of different ‘mythic’ and ‘historical’ modes. See also pp. – above on the need (in the light of the ancient evidence) to treat Cohn’s bipartite division of history and fiction as reflecting strong tendencies rather than universal features of historical and fictional narrative, and pp. – on the notion that Herodotus creates a spatium historicum distinct from a spatium mythicum.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



Herodotus employs a manner of reporting the psychological states of his characters in a way strongly reminiscent of Homer’s primary narrator. The use of this manner may indicate that we should assume Herodotus has authoritative (but unspecified) sources for his ascription of particular emotions and motivations in this narrative, but the fact that this is the first extended narrative in the Histories is striking and perhaps suggests that here we have the employment of a manner reminiscent of Homer because this story takes place before the starting-point for knowable history which Herodotus sketches at Hdt. ..–, where he says that after indicating Croesus, whom he knows to have been the first to wrong the Greeks, he will ‘go forward to the rest of my account’ (προβήσομαι ἐς τὸ πρόσω τοῦ λόγου), contrasting this with the stories of Persians and Phoenicians about the mythological roots of the conflict of Greek and non-Greek about which he suspends judgement. The employment of an omniscient manner with regard to Candaules and Gyges as background for the Croesus logos may be part, as Carolyn Dewald suggests, of Herodotus employing a more ‘mythic’ narrative manner (including the use of mythic genealogies) as part of an attempt to make non-Greeks intelligible to Greek audiences by supplying a ‘traditional Greek framework’ for understanding their past. Herodotus’ occasional adoption of a rather Homeric omniscience is itself a useful reminder that Apollonius also regularly employs this mode about the private mental states of his characters, and the origins of their desires and emotions (so that Apollonius also reproduces in his epic the combination in the primary narrator of occasional privileged access to such mental states with a frequent concern with their documentation which we find in Herodotus). For example in book  the narrator tells us that the goddess Hera put περιώσιον . . . | θάρσος (‘enormous courage’, A.R. .–) into Ancaeus, leading him to offer to be the Argo’s new helmsman, while in book  (just after the aporetic opening invocation to the Muse), we hear that Hera cast ‘most grievous fear’ (ἀλεγεινότατον . . .

 

   

See Baragwanath : . Cf. Cohn : , ‘Where verbs of inner happenings are concerned, a punctilious biographer will abandon the inferential past for the past indicative only under special circumstances: when he can base his statements on autobiographical documents.’ See Dewald : –, –. For Apollonius’ privileged access to Medea’s mental states (at least in some parts of the epic) see Scholes & Kellogg : –, Fusillo . Cf. Beye : . Cf. θεοῦ . . . ὁρμῇ (‘by the prompting of a god’, A.R. .), also of Ancaeus.



Creating Authorities

φόβον, A.R. .) into Medea’s heart. And of course it is of Medea’s emotions towards Jason we hear the most, as when the narrator describes her imagining Jason after he has left the meeting with Aietes: προπρὸ δ’ ἄρ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἔτι οἱ ἰνδάλλετο πάντα, αὐτός θ’ οἷος ἔην, οἵοισί τε φάρεσιν ἕστο, οἷά τ’ ἔειφ’, ὥς θ’ ἕζετ’ ἐπὶ θρόνου, ὥς τε θύραζε ἤιεν· οὐδέ τιν’ ἄλλον ὀίσσατο πορφύρουσα ἔμμεναι ἀνέρα τοῖον· ἐν οὔασι δ’ αἰὲν ὀρώρει αὐδή τε μῦθοί τε μελίφρονες, οὓς ἀγόρευσεν.

(A.R. . )

Right before her eyes everything still flashed, what he himself was like, the clothes he wore, how he spoke, how he sat on the chair, how he left through the doors. As she pondered she didn’t think there was any other such man. In her ears there continued to be his voice and the honeyed words he spoke.

I have suggested elsewhere that we should interpret some examples of the occasional privileged knowledge which the Apollonian narrator displays, such as his knowledge of the gods’ actions at A.R. .– or A.R. ., as indicating that these pieces of information are in principle verifiable by the narrator’s (here unspecified) sources (whose existence is implied by his documentary concern elsewhere). However, the combination in Apollonius of different perspectives on the minds of the characters associated with different types of narrative suggests rather that the variation between Homeric omniscience and Herodotean inference and uncertainty itself destabilises the distinction between historical and fictional epic narratives and complicates the authority of the Apollonian narrator. This is not because such modes could not in principle be combined in one work: we have seen that the Herodotean narrator, for example, also varies in his employment on occasion of a more ‘mythic’, epic-like mode with regard to such narratives as the story of Candaules, his wife and Croesus’ ancestor Gyges. But Herodotus can employ such a mode without introducing instability into his historiographical project (especially with regard to its main focus, the explanation of the conflict between Greeks and 





Cf. A.R. .–, where we learn (from a narratorial apostrophe to the goddess herself ) that Hera had put the idea of communicating Alcinous’ intention to Jason and Medea into Arete’s mind. If we should understand νόσφι δὲ οἷ αὐτῷ φάτ’ (A.R. .) as ‘he thought apart to himself’ (so, e.g., Hunter : ), then we get considerable access to Aietes’ private mental state at A.R. .–, revealing his true intentions towards the sons of Phrixus and the reasons for his fear of them. Cf. Morrison : .

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



non-Greeks and its cause), because (as we have also seen) the Histories is a text much clearer about the boundaries between different types of knowledge and the limitations of various types of evidence. However, in the Argonautica we find the combination of the authority of the historian (principally built on the analytical collection and evaluation of sources and evidence) with that of the traditional epic (based on the authority of the Muse and the self-sufficient character of the story-world it creates) in such a way as to sap both sources of authority of their power. The Apollonian narrator recalls aspects of the Herodotean historiographical manner, but the overall effect on the readers is not to construct a reliable, authoritative, critical intelligence portrayed as carefully weighing up sources and reconstructing events and motivations as far as possible (but also flagging where certainty or knowledge are impossible). Rather the readers are presented with a narrator who appears to regard σήματα (which the epic also flags as capable of multiple interpretation) as straightforward proof of parts of his Argonautic narrative, thus recalling the Herodotean master of signs, but also suggesting a much less able and reliable interpreter of them. The inferential, restricted perspective which Apollonius’ narrator adopts with regard to some aspects of his narrative, which is one element of the historiographical mode, can also be employed with reference to another key part of the epic landscape, the gods. This forms a further part of the Argonautica’s modification of the situation in Homer. With regard to the gods, the primary narrator in Herodotus tends to adopt a perspective reminiscent of that of a Homeric mortal (such as that of Odysseus in his own narrative in Odyssey –), whose statements about divine intervention or influence in the action of the poem tend to be to a generalised θεός or δαίμων (‘god’), rather than to a named deity. When the narrator 

 

See in general Feeney . As Feeney points out, the place of the gods in the Argonautica will have been an issue for its readers, given the delay in their entry to the epic as active agents (in sharp contrast to the Homeric epics): ‘It is worth noting at the outset that Apollonius for long keeps us in suspense as to how (or even, perhaps, whether) he will represent the gods in the narrative. The gods are referred to by poet and characters in the early part of the poem, but they do not themselves appear as characters in any early scenes, as do the gods in both Iliad and Odyssey’ (Feeney : ). See, e.g., Baragwanath : – and pp. – with n.  above. In general on the presentation of the gods in Herodotus see Scullion . On the rationalised proem of Herodotus from which the gods are entirely removed see Baragwanath & de Bakker b: , Saïd : –, Fowler :  n. . It is an exaggeration to claim (with Lateiner : –) that Herodotus in general omits the gods from historical explanations in the Histories as a whole: see Gould : – for a judicious survey of Herodotus’ attitude to the role of the gods in historical explanation. As Pelling : – notes, it is Thucydides, rather than Herodotus, who (exceptionally for ancient historiography) eliminates the gods from historical



Creating Authorities

explains, for example, that Cyrus’ dream about Darius foretells Cyrus’ death, rather than Darius’ disloyalty, he does not specify a particular god but uses δαίμων (‘god’): τῷ δὲ ὁ δαίμων προέφαινε ὡς αὐτὸς μὲν τελευτήσειν αὐτοῦ ταύτῃ μέλλοι, ἡ δὲ βασιληίη αὐτοῦ περιχωρέοι ἐς Δαρεῖον ‘the god was showing him that he was to die in that place, and his kingdom would pass to Darius’, ..–). There is a particularly interesting example of a similarly distanced presentation of divine intervention in Argonautica book , when a halcyon’s arrival anticipates the quelling of the winds which have delayed the Argonauts at Cyzicus. The narrator tells us that Mopsus understood the significance of the bird’s arrival (A.R. .–) and then that ‘a god turned it away’ (τὴν μὲν θεὸς αὖτις ἀπέτραπεν, A.R. .) before it settled on the stern ornament of the Argo. We might simply explain this as focalised by Mopsus, since we are told explicitly that ‘Mopsus understood’ (συνέηκε δὲ Μόψος, A.R. .) just before the mention of the θεός. But the fact that Mopsus in his subsequent speech offers a specific god as the subject of the sign (μητέρα συμπάντων μακάρων, ‘mother of all the gods’, A.R. .) suggests that the narrator’s employment of the unspecific θεός is pointed: readers remain uncertain as to how accurate Mopsus’ interpretation is since it is not confirmed by the narrator, who even marks the appearance of further divine signs apparently confirming the god’s acceptance of the Argonauts’ sacrifices with an inference (που, ‘it seems’, ‘I suppose’): ἡ δέ που εὐαγέεσσιν ἐπὶ φρένα θῆκε θυηλαῖς ἀνταίη δαίμων· τὰ δ’ ἐοικότα σήματ’ ἔγεντο. (A.R. . )

It seems the receptive goddess paid attention to their pure offerings: fitting signs appeared.

This particular instance does not express scepticism or doubt about the identity of the goddess (or her favour), but it does advertise that the



  

explanation. For an approach which examines the Histories from the perspective of Herodotus’ ‘beliefs’ and finds them central to his historical enquiry see Harrison . Contrast a Herodotean character such as Croesus, who does name Zeus when describing how he came to be with Cyrus: “ὦ βασιλεῦ, εἶπον μὲν καὶ πρότερόν τοι ὅτι ἐπεί με Ζεὺς ἔδωκέ τοι . . .” (‘King, I told you previously that since Zeus gave me to you . . .’, ..). See de Jong : –, : – on the common use of verbs of perception or emotion introducing ‘embedded focalisation’ of this kind. I.e. Rhea or Cybele. Commentators vary in their identification of the god who ‘turned away’ the halcyon: Mooney  ad loc. assumes this is Hera, but Vian : ,  n.  suggests it is Rhea; Fränkel :  notes the uncertainty. On narratorial inferences in the Argonautica see Morrison : – and see pp. – above.

Truth and the Limits of Knowledge



narrator’s knowledge of the events of his narrative is importantly different from the Muse-inspired certainty of the Homeric epics and resembles in its inferential character an important element of the historiographical mode (especially as exemplified by Herodotus), contributing to the very different picture of the gods which we find in the Argonautica as compared with Homeric epic. Apollonius does not always emphasise the inferential character of his knowledge of the gods’ role in his narrative by any means, as the fully developed Olympus scene at the beginning of book  makes clear, where Hera and Athena visit Aphrodite to secure Eros’ help in making Medea fall in love with Jason in an episode strongly reminiscent of a more Homeric manner of presenting the role of the gods in an epic. Nevertheless, the presence of passages where the Argonautic narrator is apparently making inferences on the basis of restricted knowledge about the participation of the gods is an important difference from Homer and one which employs an aspect of the historiographical mode in order to underline this difference, in similar fashion to the handling of human motivation in the Argonautica.







As when the Herodotean narrator comments on a unique Delian earthquake that ‘the god sent this portent, no doubt, to warn of the evils which were to come to pass’ (καὶ τοῦτο μέν κου τέρας ἀνθρώποισι τῶν μελλόντων ἔσεσθαι κακῶν ἔφηνε ὁ θεός, Hdt. ..), marking this as an inference (κου). See Feeney : , Hunter : –. Apollonius’ primary narrator also employs θεός (singular or plural) at . (the sons of Phrixus grab a beam ὑπ’ ἐννεσίῃσι θεῶν, ‘by the designs of the gods’), . (θεοί, ‘gods’, send a sign confirming that Argos’ plan to enlist Medea’s help is a good one), .– (θεά, ‘goddess’, gives a favourable sign in response to Argos’ planned route via the Ister). At . the narrator describes Medea’s griefs as θεσπέσι’ (‘sent by the gods’), while at . Medea’s distress is θευμορίῃ (‘destined by the gods’). Though (as is typical for Apollonius) reminiscence of Homer is there used to generate or highlight difference from Homer. An excellent example of the way in which Apollonius gestures towards the Homeric model while producing a very different effect is the narrative of Medea’s consideration and eventual rejection of suicide in book  (A.R. .–; on this passage see Hunter : .). Here we get a long (and very unHomeric) description of Medea’s state of mind, in which Medea ‘yearned to take life-destroying drugs and swallow them’ (ἵετο δ’ ἥ γε | φάρμακα λέξασθαι θυμοφθόρα, τόφρα πάσαιτο, A.R. .–), but is stopped by a ‘terrible fear of hateful Hades’ (δεῖμ’ ὀλοὸν στυγεροῖο . . . Ἀίδαο, A.R. .), which then leads to her remembering all of life’s good things (A.R. .–), including her friends and the sun (standing for the opposite of the gloomy underworld). She puts the casket of drugs back down, and it is only at this point that we learn ‘she changed her mind at the suggestion of Hera’ (Ἥρης ἐννεσίῃσι μετάτροπος, A.R. .). Formally, one might say, this keeps within the boundaries of ‘double motivation’ (Lesky ), but the contrast between the lengthy description of Medea’s developing mental state and the bare statement that she changed her mind because of Hera produces a very different effect from that found in Homer. Cf. also Feeney :  on the re-evaluation prompted by the revelation in book  that Arete’s action to enable the marriage of Jason and Medea, which had been explained in human terms in the scene of her bedroom conversation with Alcinous (.–), was in fact motivated by Hera’s intervention (.–).



Creating Authorities

The Past Is a Foreign Country … Among the most obviously Herodotean features of the Argonautica to many readers are the frequent statements about customs, rituals and practices (and their origins) of peoples around the Mediterranean and Black Sea (such as the Argonautic sacrifices at Cyzicus which give rise to the Phrygian worship of Rhea with rhombus and drum: ἔνθεν ἐσαιεὶ | ῥόμβῳ καὶ τυπάνῳ Ῥείην Φρύγες ἱλάσκονται, ‘Since then the Phrygians have always appeased Rhea with wheel and drum’, A.R. .–). These resemble one of the most characteristic features of Herodotean historiography, the ethnographic description of the practices and customs of various peoples. In places Apollonius engages with specific elements of particular Herodotean ethnographic descriptions (as we shall see in Chapter  below), while the place of ethnographic accounts of the customs of particular ethnic groups is also important in explanations of the actions of individual members of those ethnic groups (as we shall examine in Chapter ), but I focus attention in this section on particularly important ways in which Apollonius’ narrative reflects the patterns and language of ethnographic discourse (especially in Herodotus), which is so extensive and pervasive that Apollonius can be said in some ways to take an ethnographic approach to his mythological narrative. Ethnographic discourse in historiography is, of course, not confined to Herodotus, but Herodotus stands at the head of the tradition of ethnographic history, and is likely to have been a key example of (and modello-codice for) such writing for Apollonius and his Hellenistic readers, while some aspects of Apollonius’ ethnographic manner pick up specifically Herodotean elements. Herodotus’ ethnographic interests are clearest in the long ethnographic treatments of Egypt in book  and Scythia and Libya in book , but his attention to the nomoi or ‘customs’ of a diverse range of ethnic groups is evident through most of the Histories – e.g. in the treatment of Spartan customs in book  (.–) or the catalogue of Xerxes’ forces in book  (.–). He is particularly interested in burial customs and other forms 

 

Cf. here the related (but distinct) treatment of mythological figures as if they were historical which we find (e.g.) in Herodotus where he applies to some of these figures the same principles of historiographical analysis as one might use for historical personages such as Xerxes or Themistocles (see Strasburger : – and esp. de Jong , the latter on Hdt. .–, Herodotus’ analysis of Helen’s place in the Trojan War). On Herodotus and the tradition of ethnographic history he initiates see pp. – above. See pp. – above.

The Past Is a Foreign Country



of religious practice (see, for example, the lengthy treatment of Egyptian religious customs and beliefs at .–), and it is partly through describing these that he articulates the differences (but also the similarities) between individual non-Greek peoples and Greeks and between different non-Greek peoples, out of a strong sense of the difference between the nomoi of different people and a recognition that all peoples view their own customs as the best: (οὕτω νομίζουσι πολλόν τι καλλίστους τοὺς ἑωυτῶν νόμους ἕκαστοι εἶναι, ‘each people thinks its own customs are the best by far’, Hdt. ..). When Herodotus discusses the death customs of the Issedones (a people living beyond the Scythians), this emphasises their difference from the Greeks (as befits their status as a people on the edge of the known world): when a man’s father dies livestock is sacrificed and the animal meat mixed with that of the dead father, who is also chopped up, to create a special meal (Hdt. ..). But amid great (even shocking) difference there is similarity to be discerned: the father’s head is plucked, cleaned and gilded and ‘used in the manner of a cult statue’ (ἅτε ἀγάλματι χρέωνται, Hdt. ..), since sons offer it yearly sacrifices, just as the Greeks celebrate anniversaries of deaths (παῖς δὲ πατρὶ τοῦτο ποιέει, κατά περ Ἕλληνες τὰ γενέσια, Hdt. ..). And it is not only non-Greeks who are so scrutinised, as we have noted above, since the customs and privileges of the Spartan kings also receive an ethnographic treatment (Hdt. .–), and the attendant royal death customs of the Spartans are explicitly compared with the behaviour of non-Greeks: νόμος δὲ τοῖσι Λακεδαιμονίοισι κατὰ τῶν βασιλέων τοὺς θανάτους ἐστὶ ὡυτὸς καὶ τοῖσι βαρβάροισι τοῖσι ἐν τῇ Ἀσίῃ· τῶν γὰρ ὦν βαρβάρων οἱ πλεῦνες τῷ αὐτῷ νόμῳ χρέωνται κατὰ τοὺς θανάτους τῶν βασιλέων. (Hdt. ..) The practice of the Lacedaemonians in the matter of the death of their kings is the same as that of the barbarians of Asia, because most barbarians employ the same practice with regard to the death of their kings.





In part this interest in ritual reflects an understanding of religion primarily in ritual terms, but it also reflects what can easily be learnt (or recovered) about non-Greek peoples, as Gould : – argues. The wider contexts or structures of myth and belief (which Gould terms their ‘ideologies’) are difficult to capture for non-Greek peoples; for Greek religion they are provided by the accounts of the gods in Homer and Hesiod. The classic treatment is Hartog . For some of the limitations of Hartog’s approach, see Pelling  and Dewald . For more recent work on Greek and non-Greek identity and their interaction, see Skinner : –. See also on Herodotean and Greek ethnography Bichler  and for an earlier phase of work in this area Tru¨dinger . It is probable that Herodotean ethnography does reflect some knowledge of the non-Greek peoples described: see in general Munson  on Herodotus’ account of the Persians.



Creating Authorities

Apollonius’ use of ethnographic discourse in his epic alongside his employment of an ethnographic attitude or approach to his mythological narrative goes to the heart of his integration in the Argonautica of modes of writing appropriate to different forms of discourse and the consequent effects on the readers. The presence of ethnographic comments on the part of the primary narrator in the poem is facilitated in part by the blending of temporal levels we find in the epic, breaking down the strong discontinuity with the distant mythological past which we can see in Homer. This closing of the gap is itself brought about in part by the placing in the mythological past of the origin of customs which persist into the Hellenistic present of the narrator (such as the contemporary Phrygian use of wheel and drum initiated by contact with the Argonauts in the past, which we touched on above). Connected with this aetiological grounding of Hellenistic nomoi in the Argonautic past is the projection into that past of identifiable, historical peoples, such as the Tibarenians (part of the Persian empire: see Hdt. . and .), who are then treated ethnographically. We can also see this clearly in the case of the Chalybes, another people mentioned by Herodotus (Hdt. .): Τοῖσι μὲν οὔτε βοῶν ἄροτος μέλει, οὔτε τις ἄλλη φυταλιὴ καρποῖο μελίφρονος, οὐδὲ μὲν οἵ γε ποίμνας ἑρσήεντι νομῷ ἔνι ποιμαίνουσιν· ἀλλὰ σιδηροφόρον στυφελὴν χθόνα γατομέοντες ὦνον ἀμείβονται βιοτήσιον.

(A.R. . )

Ploughing with oxen is no concern of theirs, nor is the planting of honey sweet fruit, nor do they shepherd flocks in a dewy meadow. Instead they break the rough, iron bearing ground and exchange it for life giving goods.

Since they are often historical, many of the peoples so described feature in historiography (notably Herodotus and Xenophon). But I would also like to focus attention on a still more pervasive sign of the employment of   

Cf. e.g. ἔτι νῦν, ‘to this day’ at A.R. ., of the Cycizenes grinding the meal for sacrificial cakes at the public mill when commemorating Cyzicus and Cleite. On the present tense in Apollonius’ ethnographic descriptions, see Fränkel : . Indeed Apollonius’ projection of such peoples into the mythological past may reflect the phenomenon of the apparently unchanging character of certain non-Greek peoples in historiography. Cobet : – argues that individual non-Greek ethnē in Herodotus (as opposed to individual poleis or larger empires) are presented as unchanging. This stable character is reflected in later historiography; see Rood :  on the non-Greek neighbours of Trapezus on the Black Sea coast remaining unchanged for  years between the accounts of them in Xenophon’s Anabasis and Arrian. Rood also notes that Apollonius projects this ‘ethnographic timelessness’ back into the era of the Argonauts.

The Past Is a Foreign Country



ethnographic description and attitude in the Argonautica: the narrator’s ethnographic perspective on the heroic world as a whole (including the Argonauts themselves). Crucially, it is not only the foreign peoples the Argonauts meet whom we see through the eyes of an ethnographer, but the entire world of the poem. Examination of the presence of ethnographic discourse in the Argonautica will allow a clearer sense of how this aspect of the historiographical mode marks out Apollonius’ difference from his Homeric modello-codice, and in turn the differences between Apollonius and Homer will enable us better to gauge the effect of ethnographic discourse in the Argonautica and its affinities with Herodotean patterns. In the Iliad, whose subject matter is a long-past clash between Greeks and non-Greeks, the opportunity existed for extensive cultural explanation on the part of the narrator of the customs, habits and practices of Greeks, Trojans and Trojan allies, since the heroic world plainly differs in many striking respects from the realities of the narrator’s present (and that of the audience). But, in fact, there is virtually no explanation of this kind: we find from the narrator ‘no effort to give his contemporaries a guide to the age of heroes; we are left to infer what we can from the actions and the speeches themselves’. A related aspect of this lack of ethnographic or cultural description is the avoidance by the Homeric primary narrator of the word θέμις (‘custom’, ‘right’), which is overwhelmingly found in the speeches of characters rather than the mouth of the narrator (twenty-six times in speeches; three times in the narrative), while the phrase ἣ θέμις ἐστί (‘as is right’, ‘as is customary’) is never employed by the narrator but frequently by the characters. In the Odyssey too there is a clear divide between the language of the narrator and those of the characters in descriptions of human habits or practices: the word δίκη in the sense of ‘way’ or ‘custom’ appears only in the mouths of characters. It is, of course, Odysseus (rather than the primary narrator) who shows an explicit interest in the customs and habits of the peoples he encounters, as when he describes the Cyclopes to the Phaeacians: 

  

Richardson : . The only exceptions noted by Richardson are names, which the narrator occasionally supplies, as at Il. .–, ., .–, ., ., ., and the statement that the Trojans and their allies do not share a common language (Il. .–). Cf. de Jong : – on the knowledge which the Homeric narrator assumes (or ‘presupposes’) the audience possesses. See Griffin :  (‘The poet never commits himself to expressing, from his own mouth, the idea that something is correct, in line with timeless usage’). At Od. ., ., ., ., ., .. As flagged already in the poem’s proem (πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, ‘he saw the cities of many men and came to know their minds’, Od. .). On the poetic (and other)



Creating Authorities Κυκλώπων δ’ ἐς γαῖαν ὑπερφιάλων ἀθεμίστων ἱκόμεθ’, οἵ ῥα θεοῖσι πεποιθότες ἀθανάτοισιν οὔτε φυτεύουσιν χερσὶν φυτὸν οὔτ’ ἀρόωσιν, ἀλλὰ τά γ’ ἄσπαρτα καὶ ἀνήροτα πάντα φύονται, πυροὶ καὶ κριθαὶ ἠδ’ ἄμπελοι, αἵ τε φέρουσιν οἶνον ἐριστάφυλον, καί σφιν Διὸς ὄμβρος ἀέξει. τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι οὔτε θέμιστες, ἀλλ’ οἵ γ’ ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων ναίουσι κάρηνα ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι, θεμιστεύει δὲ ἕκαστος παίδων ἠδ’ ἀλόχων, οὐδ’ ἀλλήλων ἀλέγουσιν. (Od. . )

We came to the land of the lawless, overbearing Cyclopes, who trust in the immortal gods and neither plant seed with their hands nor plough, but everything grows unsown and unploughed, wheat and barley and vines, which give them wine from large clusters, and the rain of Zeus grows them. They have no gatherings for council nor laws, but they dwell on the peaks of the high mountains in hollow caves and each one decrees laws for children and wives, and they pay no heed to one another.

Such an ethnographic interest is another feature which both Herodotus and Apollonius share with Odysseus, rather than the Homeric narrator, who also in the Odyssey largely avoids this kind of ethnographic or cultural explanation. The presentation of the customs of different ethnic groups is very different in historiographical texts such as Herodotus or Xenophon’s Anabasis as compared with the Homeric pattern. In historiography we find frequent statements about the practices or rules found among different peoples, as when we read of the custom of the Thracians to toast with wine in drinking horns (Xen. An. .., κατὰ τὸν Θρᾴκιον νόμον) or to place tables by each of the guests at dinner (Xen. An. .., νόμος γὰρ ἦν). The vocabulary is also markedly different from that in Homer: we do

 

antecedents of the ethnographic interest in foreign peoples we see in historiography, see Skinner : –. See Marincola : –, Baragwanath : –. Compare also the Apollonian narrator’s description of the Chalybes, quoted above, with Odysseus’ account of the Cyclopes. There is a partial exception to this at Od. .–, where Helen’s source for the pharmakon she places in the wine to bring about forgetfulness of cares is explained as Egyptian: τοῖα Διὸς θυγάτηρ ἔχε φάρμακα μητιόεντα, | ἐσθλά, τά οἱ Πολύδαμνα πόρεν, Θῶνος παράκοιτις | Αἰγυπτίη, τῇ πλεῖστα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα | φάρμακα, πολλὰ μὲν ἐσθλὰ μεμιγμένα πολλὰ δὲ λυγρά· | ἰητρὸς δὲ ἕκαστος ἐπιστάμενος περὶ πάντων | ἀνθρώπων· ἦ γὰρ Παιήονός εἰσι γενέθλης (‘Such cunning drugs did the daughter of Zeus have, good ones, which Polydamna has given to her, the wife of Thon. She was from Egypt and there the live-giving earth produces the most drugs, many good ones when mixed, many baneful ones. And each person there is a healer with knowledge above all other men, since they are of the race of Paean’).

The Past Is a Foreign Country



not find δίκη used of customs in Herodotus or the Anabasis, and θέμις is also very rare in historiography of the practices of particular peoples or groups (not found in the Anabasis or Thucydides, and only once in Herodotus, at .. of a Babylonian woman not being able to refuse money offered for sex at Aphrodite’s temple, οὐ γὰρ οἱ θέμις ἐστί). Instead we find the frequent use of νόμος (‘way’, ‘custom’, ‘law’) and closely related words (e.g. νόμαιον, νομίζω) and occasionally τρόπος (‘way’, ‘manner’). But the key aspect of the historiographical mode of presenting the customs of different ethnoi is the careful restriction of a particular nomos or tropos to a given group or body: very often we read of something being a nomos ‘for them’ or ‘used by’ a named people: as when we are told that ‘for them this was the practice’ (νόμος γὰρ ἦν οὗτος σφισι, Xen. An. ..: Mossynoecian public sex) or ‘as was their habit’ (ὥσπερ δὴ τρόπος ἦν αὐτοῖς, Xen. An. ..: Thracians flee with their shields on their backs). It is in Herodotus where we find this usage particularly often: Herodotus abounds in examples of νόμος with σφι/σφίσι. Apollonius clearly develops aspects of the presentation of ethnic customs and practices in historiographical texts in his epic, which is underlined by the ways in which he transforms the patterns we have observed in Homer. This is clearest in Apollonius’ transformation of the epic term θέμις (which as we have seen is very rare in historiography with reference to cultural practices). In the Argonautica this is employed in the primary narrator’s own narrative, as in the description in book  of the sacrifices practised by the Amazons at the temple of Ares (A.R. .–), where the narrator tells us it was ‘not right for them’ (οὐδέ σφιν θέμις ἦεν, .) to burn sacrifices of sheep or bulls on its altar, in marked contrast to the Argonauts, who do sacrifice sheep there (.). The usage of θέμις with σφιν here strongly resembles the use of νόμος with σφι or αὐτοῖς which we have observed in Xenophon and especially Herodotus: it represents the 





Cf. e.g. Hdt. .. (νόμοισι τοιοισίδε χρεωμένους, ‘using these customs’: χράομαι with the dative being a common way of describing the customs a people ‘use’ in Herodotus), .. (Caunian νόμοι very different from those of other humans), .. (Lycian νόμοι partly Cretan, partly Carian), .. (τρόποισι . . . χρέωνται, also of Caunian customs), .. (τρόπος, of purging by Egyptians), .. (τὰ Περσέων νόμιμα), .. (Scythians guard τὰ σφέτερα νόμαια), .. (Persians think the most shameful thing is to lie: αὐτοῖσι τὸ ψεύδεσθαι νενόμισται). Cf. e.g. .. (Persians), .. (Babylonians), .. (Babylonians/Enetians), .. (Babylonians), .. (Egyptians), .. (Persians), .. (Egyptians), .. (Spartans). Herodotus also specifies the relationship of groups to customs by naming the people and the practices they ‘employ’ (often with χράομαι, see n. ), as at (e.g.) .. (Taurians), .. (Agathyrsians), .. (Neurians), .. (Black Cloaks), .. (Adyrmachidae), .. (Giligamae), etc. See Hunter : .



Creating Authorities

transformation of a Homeric term used by heroic characters to articulate their values to one another into one used to express an ethnographic attitude to the customs of a group within a mythological epic. Apollonius displays the same fundamental characteristic of restriction to a particular group which we find in historiographical descriptions of the nomoi of particular peoples. This example of what we might term ‘ethnographic themis’ (to distinguish it sharply from the very different usage of themis in Homer) is in Apollonius by no means an isolated one. We find a similar use (and a similar ethnographic attitude) in the description of Colchian burial customs at A.R. .–, where we learn that it is not θέμις for the Colchians (hence ‘ethnographic themis’ once more) to bury men in the ground, but rather to wrap them in oxhides and hang them in trees (.–). But in Apollonius the ethnographic perspective extends not just to other peoples, but to the heroic age itself, as does the use of ‘ethnographic themis’, as we can see in the description of the funeral of Idmon, seer of the Argonauts: παρὰ δ’ ἄσπετα μῆλα, ἣ θέμις οἰχομένοισι, ταφήια λαιμοτόμησαν.

(A.R. . )

By his tomb they slaughtered countless sheep, as is right for the departed, as funeral offerings.

What is being described here as ‘right’ or ‘proper’ is the correct behaviour at the funeral of an epic hero of the distant past, rather than a statement about correct funerary practice tout court (private Hellenistic individuals did not enjoy the slaughter of countless sheep at their tombs). It is striking that Apollonius should employ themis in this manner precisely with regard to funerary customs, since this is an aspect of the nomoi of different people in which ethnographers, especially Herodotus, are particularly interested. We should also note that themis marks here (from another perspective) a generic norm, since it is fitting for the heroes of epic to be so honoured, but nonetheless we should still see hear an ethnographic  



See n.  below. Although lavishness is a feature of kingly practice in the Hellenistic period (see Murray , Gruen ). The models for such extravagance included, perhaps, the behaviour of epic heroes and such historical figures as Xerxes, who is responsible for sacrifices on a super-epic scale at Hdt. ., where he outdoes the epic hecatomb by sacrificing a thousand cattle (ἔθυσε βοῦς χιλίας) at the site of Troy, having seen where Priam ruled, in what is clearly presented as an attempt to imitate and outdo epic practice. See (e.g.) the many sheep and cattle slaughtered before Patroclus’ pyre (Il. .–).

The Past Is a Foreign Country



attitude to the heroic past and its practices which is very different from the situation in Homer. In Homer it was the characters who employed terms such as themis in order to articulate their ethics to one another (and by extension, to the audience), but in Apollonius such terms are employed by the primary narrator, adopting an external point of view as to what is correct in heroic society (rather as if heroes were another ethnos whose practices and customs require explanation for the readers of the epic). A similar external perspective on heroic behaviour is evident at A.R. .–, where ethnographic themis is again used, there of the Argonauts’ libations ahead of their departure from Pagasae (οὐδ’ ἐπὶ δὴν μετέπειτα κερασσάμενοι Διὶ λοιβάς, | ἣ θέμις, ἑστηῶτες ἐπὶ γλώσσῃσι χέοντο | αἰθομέναις, ‘[N]ot long afterwards they mixed libations for Zeus, as is right, and stood and poured them on the burning tongues’), and A.R. .–, where Jason’s conduct after the killing of Apsyrtus is described: ἥρως δ’ Αἰσονίδης ἐξάργματα τάμνε θανόντος, τρὶς δ’ ἀπέλειξε φόνου, τρὶς δ’ ἐξ ἄγος ἔπτυσ’ ὀδόντων, ἣ θέμις αὐθέντῃσι δολοκτασίας ἱλάεσθαι. The hero son of Aeson cut off the dead man’s extremities, three times licked off the blood, and three times spat out the pollution from his teeth, as is right for murderers to expiate murder by treachery.

In the Argonautica, however, such an external observer’s perspective on peculiar practices does not need to be marked by themis. Slightly later in book , when Jason and Medea are still afflicted by their actions against Apsyrtus, they are purified by Circe: ῥέζε θυηπολίην, οἵῃ τ’ ἀπολυμαίνονται | νηλητεῖς ἱκέται, ὅτ’ ἐφέστιοι ἀντιόωσιν (‘She began to perform a sacrifice, of the kind by which guilty suppliants are purified, when they are suppliants at the hearth’, A.R. .–). Statements such as this one on the nomoi of the heroic world have a pronounced distancing effect closely akin to that produced by reading ethnographic descriptions of the strange practices of foreign peoples in historiography, with the same capacity to prompt comparison with one’s own practice, to find both similarity and difference. A similar effect is produced by the narrator’s gloss on the behaviour of Jason and Medea on arrival at Circe’s: they rush to the hearth ἥ τε δίκη λυγροῖς ἱκέτῃσι τέτυκται (‘as is the custom for baneful suppliants’). As we saw above, δίκη in this sense is also a speech-word in Homer, 

On the use of themis by the primary narrator in the Argonautica, see also Mori a: – with n. . See also the important discussion of Goldhill : – and esp. – on how themis is used in the Doliones episode and in particular the killing of Apsyrtus.



Creating Authorities

here transferred to the primary narrator as part of the creation of a detached observer’s perspective on his narrative of the heroic age. The use of such a perspective within an epic is particularly pointed in this epsiode because of its clear interaction with the Odyssey: we find here an Odyssean character and location, but a treatment which is very different from that in Homer. The Odyssey’s Circe episode, of course, comes as part of Odysseus’ own narrative of his fantastical wanderings and in it Circe’s magical powers are clear. In the Argonautica, as Dufner and others have explored, there are fantastical elements such as the bizarre human–animal hybrids on Circe’s island, juxtaposed with a ‘realistic’ elements, such as the comparison of these creatures to primordial life or the detail of Circe and Medea communicating in Colchian. Apollonius further underlines his adaptation of his Homeric model in this episode, I suggest, by adopting crucial elements of an ethnographer’s perspective; more broadly we can see that this attitude applies to the narrative universe he depicts in the epic as a whole, a further fundamental transformation of Homeric epic. There are further aspects of Apollonius’ presentation of different customs and practices in his epic which are powerfully reminiscent of some historiographical patterns. The treatment of difference in the description of the customs of the Mossynoecians whom the Argonauts pass by on the southern coast of the Black Sea has strong echoes of the prominence which difference can have in particular ethnographic descriptions in Herodotus and Xenophon. Where a people in these texts displays extremely divergent practices from the majority of humanity, this tends to be strongly marked, as in the case of the Caunians (Hdt. ..: νόμοισι δὲ χρέωνται κεχωρισμένοισι πολλὸν τῶν τε ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων καὶ Καρῶν), Egyptians (Hdt. ..: τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ἔμπαλιν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ἀνθρώποισι ἐστήσαντο ἤθεά τε καὶ νόμους), Ethiopians (Hdt. ..: νόμοισι δὲ καὶ ἄλλοισι χρᾶσθαι αὐτούς φασι κεχωρισμένοισι τῶν ἄλλων 

   

 

Dufner : : ‘Apollonius thus carefully writes his episode so as to play simultaneously in unison and in counterpoint to Homer’s.’ On the similarities and significant reversals of the Circeepisode in the Odyssey, see Dufner : –. See, e.g., Od. .– on Circe’s amazement at Odysseus’ ability to withstand her drugs. See Fränkel : –, –, Beye : –, Dufner : –. See further on the use of the historiographical mode to articulate difference from Homer pp. – and –. As Hunter :  (on A.R. .–), Apollonius ‘writes in the Herodotean tradition of ethnography which examines foreign practices in terms of their difference from Greek customs’. Cf. also Fränkel : . ‘Their customs are very different from the rest of humanity, and the Carians’. ‘They have mostly set up customs and practices opposite to the rest of humanity’.

The Past Is a Foreign Country



ἀνθρώπων) or the Mossynoecians themselves (Xen. An. ..: πλεῖστον τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν νόμων κεχωρισμένους), which is the likely proximate model for the details in Apollonius’ own account (so that Apollonius evokes both the manner and the content of ethnographic descriptions in historiography in this case). It is also possible to emphasise strong difference from a neighbour as with one Indian people at .. (ἑτέρων δὲ ἐστὶ Ἰνδῶν ὅδε ἄλλος τρόπος) or the Libyans west of the Tritonis at .. (οὐκέτι νομάδες εἰσὶ Λίβυες οὐδὲ νόμοισι τοῖσι αὐτοῖσι χρεώμενοι). Such differences are often the first or second item detailed in Herodotus or Xenophon and usually form a large proportion of the description of the customs of the people concerned. This is also the case in Apollonius’ account, which moves on from the etymology of the Mossynoecians (from the ‘mossynes’ in which they live) to their profound differences from (Hellenistic) Greeks contemporary with the narrator: ἀλλοίη δὲ δίκη καὶ θέσμια τοῖσι τέτυκται. ὅσσα μὲν ἀμφαδίη̣ ῥέζειν θέμις, ἢ ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἢ ἀγορῇ, τάδε πάντα δόμοις ἔνι μηχανόωνται· ὅσσα δ’ ἐνὶ μεγάροις πεπονήμεθα, κεῖνα θύραζε ἀψεγέως μέσσῃσιν ἐνὶ ῥέζουσιν ἀγυιαῖς.

(A.R. . )

Their customs and laws are different. Whatever it is right to do openly, in public or in the marketplace, all these things they carry out indoors, but whatever we do in our homes, they do these things outside in the middle of the streets, without reproach.

Here the narrator employs in his own voice terms normally restricted in Homer to the characters: the δίκη of the Mossynoecians is ‘different’, while it is θέμις (for ‘us’, as πεπονήμεθα gives away at .) to do certain things openly. Apollonius also echoes the way in which some ethnographic descriptions in historiography, especially Herodotus, can be closed. On some occasions Herodotus ends an ethnographic description with a statement such as ‘such are the customs of that people’, as of the Caunians (καὶ οὗτοι      

‘They say they use different customs, unlike those of the rest of humanity’. ‘The most different from Greek customs’. The accounts are closely similar in a number of important respects. See Fränkel : , Cusset, : –, Clauss :  and pp. – below. At Hdt. .. the difference of the Caunians from the neighbouring Carians is also pointed out, in addition to their general difference from humanity’s usual practices. On the significance of this description for the portrayal of Egypt in the poem, see pp. –. Cf. pp. –.



Creating Authorities

μὲν τρόποισι τοιούτοισι χρέωνται, ..) or Babylonians (νόμοι μὲν δὴ τοῖσι Βαβυλωνίοισι οὗτοι κατεστᾶσι, ..). At the end of his description of Colchian burial customs at the beginning of Argonautica book , Apollonius adds the comment that ἡ γάρ τε δίκη θεσμοῖο τέτυκται (‘this is the manner of their custom’, .), recalling the form and the function of closing ethnographic statements in Herodotus, though transforming them into epic vocabulary (employing δίκη rather than νόμος or τρόπος). Apollonius owes a clear debt not simply to the content of ethnographic descriptions in Herodotus, Xenophon and elsewhere, from which he has clearly drawn, but more importantly to the ethnographic perspective employed in ethnography and the ethnographic descriptions in historiography. The language of epic is employed but also distorted in the use of θέμις and δίκη in the narrator’s voice, often with specific restrictions to groups of people (including heroes as a class), which also recall Herodotean ethnographic vocabulary in particular. Hence Apollonius combines epic diction and Herodotean ethnographic discourse, as well as the broader attention paid in historiographers such as Herodotus and Xenophon to the nomoi of different peoples, in order to create an ethnographic attitude to the Argonautic world and its peoples, including the Argonauts themselves.

Conclusion In this chapter we have explored how the Argonautica, especially in the shape of its primary narrator, adopts and adapts various aspects characteristic of historiographical discourse, which form part of the means by which the Argonautica establishes key variations from its epic modello-codice (Homer), and so controls and manipulates its readers’ expectations of the nature of the poem. We have examined features which adapt the historiographical mode in general (that is using features which are characteristic of 

Apollonius is also, in a sense, extending the historicising attitude to mythic figures which we occasionally find in historiography, as in the comments on Minos at Thuc. ., . or on Helen and the Trojan War at Hdt. .– (on which see n.  above), but doing so by focusing in particular on heroic customs and practices to create a type of heroic ethnography. It may be that Apollonius’ ethnographic presentation of Greek mythic heroes reflects the use in the analysis and criticism of historiography in the Hellenistic period of such heroes to explain aspects of the customs of non-Greek peoples, as when Aristarchus compares the military practice of the Massagetae (at Hdt. ..) to that of heroes (see Priestley : – on col. , lines – of P. Amherst XII, who also notes the similar comparison of heroic and non-Greek practice at Aristot. fr.  Gigon fr.  Rose). See also Dufner : – and pp. – above on Apollonius’ re-epicising of Herodotus’ rationalised myth at the beginning of the Histories.

Conclusion



historiography, rather than one particular historian), such as the presentation of the epic as building on the work of one’s predecessors (as in the Catalogue of Argonauts), the careful establishment of what can be known or deduced from one’s sources at the beginning of the epic, the limited knowledge of the narrator of such things as the motivations of characters or the role of the gods, and the ethnographic description not only of particular ethnic groups, but of the heroic world itself. We have further surveyed several key ways in which Herodotus in particular is recalled for the Argonautica’s readers. In some cases this is in part through Herodotus best representing for Apollonius and his readers some of the features of the historiographical mode, such as the use of extended ethnographic accounts (reinforced by the picking up of distinctive features of Herodotean ethnographic vocabulary), but in some aspects it is clear that Herodotus is functioning as the Argonautica’s historiographical modello-codice. For example, Apollonius clearly engages with Herodotus’ distinctive practice of giving alternative explanations for particular phenomena or events and with the Herodotean notion of ‘historiographical obligation’. He also constructs his narrator as a rather less sure-footed interpreter of signs, beginning in the Catalogue of Argonauts but also across the epic, when compared to the control and authority displayed by the Herodotean narrator’s handling of σήματα. Herodotus’ presence as modello-codice for historiography is reinforced by Apollonius’ use of key Herodotean passages as his modello-esemplare, as when in book  the Colchians and Argonauts conduct themselves in a manner which develops the Persian account of the abduction of Medea in the Herodotean proem, or where Apollonius exploits in his narrative of the Argonauts on the Eridanus the comments of Herodotus about the same river, in which Herodotus advertises his critical intelligence and careful judgement of sources; the effect produced in the Argonautica is rather different. Apollonius’ narrator is not the Herodotean ‘master of signs’; rather the reader’s attention is focused on the limitations in the ability of the narrator and the incongruity of the historiographical mode as a means for approaching mythological subject matter, in such a way as to complicate the epic narrator’s authority and suggest problems in the connection of past events to the narrator’s present.

 

Explaining the Past

Introduction In this chapter I focus attention on the ways in which the Argonautica combines different attitudes to the past and its connections with the present: once again, historiography (especially Herodotean historiography) is crucial, since the epic engages in important ways with the different types of explanation in historiographical texts, including explanations of human action or motivation, explanations of events, and explanations of origins or causes, which together account for why things happened as they did in the past, and what effect this has on the present. A historiographical approach to the mythic past can be fruitfully contrasted with modes of explanation more typical of the Argonautica’s key poetic intertexts, such the use of mythical aetiology to authorise connections between past and its present in Pindar’s Pythian . It is the combination of elements of both kinds of approach to the past and how to explain it which problematises the connections of past and present in the Argonautica. Explanations are a central part of Herodotus’ historical project, and this is clear at the very beginning of the Histories, which is explicitly an investigation into the ‘reason for which’ (δι’ ἣν αἰτίην, Hdt. . prol.) Greeks and non-Greeks went to war with one another. His explanatory investigation encompasses a wide range of different aspects, since it includes human motivation (and the relationship of the motivations and reasons for actions of individuals to the wider practices and habits of different groups of people) and the aetiological explanation of the origins of various practices, customs, names and wonders (which themselves can help to explain or put into context the motivations and actions of individual figures). For example, the Herodotean logos focusing on the person identified as the first known agent in this conflict, Croesus, examines his motivations for moving against the Persians: first to forestall the growth of their power (ἐνέβησε δὲ ἐς φροντίδα, εἴ κως δύναιτο, πρὶν μεγάλους 

Introduction



γενέσθαι τοὺς Πέρσας, καταλαβεῖν αὐτῶν αὐξανομένην τὴν δύναμιν, ‘it came into his mind, if he was able, before the Persians became great, to check their growing power’, Hdt. ..), and then for a wider range of reasons (τῶνδε εἵνεκα, Hdt. ..), including his trust of the Delphic oracle apparently predicting his destruction of the Persian empire (cf. Hdt. ..), but also his personal relationship with Astyages, who was his brother-in-law, and had been overthrown by Cyrus (Hdt. ..-). Croesus’ propitiation of the Delphic oracle, whose prophecy was one of the factors in his invasion of the Persian empire, itself in turn explains the presence of various impressive dedications in various treasuries at Delphi, such as the golden lion which stands καὶ νῦν (‘even now’, Hdt. ..) in the Corinthian treasury, or the golden bowl in the Clazomenaean treasury (Hdt. ..), both of which were moved after the burning down of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Herodotus displays a profound interest in those people, names and things which have persisted to the present, and such persistence is regularly marked with phrases such as καὶ νῦν or νῦν ἔτι, such as the Pelasgians ‘who still exist today’ (..), the name ‘Termilae’ by which the Lycians ‘are called still now’ (..), the iron spits of Rhodopis which are ‘still today’ (..) to be found at Delphi, the Samian festival of dancing boys and girls which is celebrated ‘even still now’ (..), etc. Such an aetiological interest in origins and their explanation of features of the present world has been rightly identified by Jessica Priestley as one likely part of Herodotus’ enduring appeal in the Hellenistic period. She compares the similar structure of the Herodotean proem, where the competing versions attributed by Herodotus to Persians, Phoenicians and Greeks build to (and contrast with) the very different Herodotean account which begins with Croesus, and the first aetion of Callimachus’ Aetia, the genealogy of the Graces, where three different accounts the Callimachean narrator knows are contrasted with the very different version of Clio (fr. a 





The account of the earlier history of the Lydian kingdom, with which the Croesus logos begins also focuses on human motivation – the (excessive) love of Candaules for his wife (Hdt. ..), the fears of Gyges (Hdt. ..–.), the shame and determination for revenge of Candaules’ wife (Hdt. ..), etc. Cf. also Hdt. .. (νῦν ἔτι). There are several examples in Thuc., e.g. .., .. (both ἔτι νῦν), .., .., .., .., .. (all νῦν ἔτι). Cf. also Xen. An. .. (ἔτι νῦν). On these and related markers linking past to present in aetiological passages in Greek see Kowalzig :  with n. . On this focus on Croesus see above. The competing versions in the Herodotean proem are still often inaccurately described as part of the Herodotean explanation of the origins of the war between Greeks and non-Greeks (e.g. Stephens : ), but in fact they serve the role of foil for the Herodotean account proper.



Explaining the Past

Harder = Schol. Flor. –). This aetiological interest must have formed part of the appeal of Herodotus for Apollonius also, and explanations, including aetiologies of practices or place names and explanations of human motivation and action, are key to understanding how broader historiographical patterns of explanation are exploited and transformed in Apollonius, and how their use has profound consequences for the character of the epic (especially its differences from Archaic epic) and for readings of the poem against its socio-political context which view Apollonius as making politically significant connections between Argonautic myth and Hellenistic present, notably through explanations of features of the contemporary Mediterranean world through links to origins in the voyage of the Argo. A good example of such a reading of Apollonian aetiology is that of Susan Stephens, who relates the selection and modification of myth by Alexandrian poets to their use of aetia, especially (in the case of Apollonius) the story of the foundation of Cyrene by the descendants of the Argonaut Euphemus, in order ‘to accommodate the new world of the Ptolemies’. However, I shall argue that a careful investigation of the use of different modes of explanation of human actions, motivations and origins or causes of apparent features of the Hellenistic present in Apollonius suggests in fact that the connections between past and present are problematised in the Argonautica and that the instability and contingency of such connections work strongly against straightforward readings of the Argonautic myth (as constructed by Apollonius) as containing potential analogues or exemplars for Hellenistic rulers, kingdoms, peoples or institutions. The problematising in Herodotus of generalising about human behaviour and the difficulty he emphasises in reconstructing motivation are further important analogues for Apollonius’ practice, and for the problematising of exemplarity which we find in the Argonautica. In this chapter we shall again highlight the differences between Apollonius and both historiography and earlier epic: it is the ways in which Apollonius combines elements from different types of discourse which make his poem so distinctive, and such a combination is particularly important when it comes to ways of explaining the past. Explanations of origins or motivations in historiography are, of course, not confined to Herodotus: in this chapter we shall explore both the broader affinities of Apollonius’ aetiological interests with historiographical patterns in general and those places where Herodotus is playing the role of the particular historiographical model for the Argonautica. Nevertheless the broader similarities to 

See Priestley : .



Stephens : –, –.



Stephens : .

Explaining Origins and Causes



historiography are still relevant for articulating Herodotus’ use in Apollonius, since as we have seen he often functions as the Argonautica’s historiographical modello-codice.

Explaining Origins and Causes When exploring Apollonius’ particular combination of elements of types of explanation from different types of text, it is useful to bear in mind the distinction made by Barbara Kowalzig between different kinds of aetiological explanation. Kowalzig contrasts what she terms ‘historical’ aetiology, as found in Herodotus and other historians, with ‘mythical’ aetiology, which is the mode usually employed by poets such as Pindar (e.g. in his epinicians). Historical aetiology, she argues, involves connecting the present with the past through a ‘continuous chain of causes’, each of which connects with a past lying further away from the present. A good example is what she calls the ‘series of aetiological logoi’ which account for the long-standing hostility between Athens and Aegina (Hdt. .–) and which build from the furthest point in the past (ἐξ ἀρχῆς τοιῆσδε, ‘from this beginning’, ..) through a series of connected events towards the narrator’s present. Several of these events have further aetiological significance for various Athenian or Aeginetan customs, such as the larger brooches worn by Aeginetan (and Argive) women, a practice which persists, the Herodotean primary narrator declares, ‘still even to my day’ 





See, in general, Kowalzig : –. Kowalzig examines the different aetiological strategies for connecting mythical past with ritual present from a perspective explicitly similar to that of Eliade , . This is not to deny that myth can itself be a powerful explanatory framework for Herodotus: see Dewald : – for an important exploration of how myth is important for Herodotus’ characters as well as his readers. The Herodotean ‘chain of pasts’ is constructed as follows: the Epidaurians make statues of Damia and Auxesia out of Athenian olive, on the instructions of Delphi, to remedy crop failure, and undertake annual offerings to Athens in return (.); the Aeginetans secede from Epidaurian control, build navy, steal statues, take them to Aegina (.); without the statues, the Epidaurians cease their offerings to Athens, and the Athenians are told to seek redress from the Aeginetans (.); according to the Athenians, they sent representatives in a trireme to recover the statues, but natural phenomena disrupt them and lead to the deaths of most, and the statues are not recovered, with only one Athenian survivor (.); according to the Aeginetans, the Athenians came in more than one ship, tried and failed to carry off the statues, but pulling on the ropes attached to them led to both statues falling to their knees, in which state they remain. The Argives attack the Athenians, natural phenomena occur, there is one Athenian survivor (.); the versions are compared: according to the Athenians the sole survivor dies at the hands of the wives of the non-survivors, with a consequent change of clothing of Athenian women, because they used brooches to stab the man (.); Argive and Aeginetan women adopted larger brooches than earlier, other customs dating from the events (.).



Explaining the Past

(ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἐμέ, ..). It is worth noting that this chain of connected events leading back to the original cause and forward to the present also involves competing narratives for some aspects of the story, notably the number of Athenian ships sent to recover the statues, the role of the Argives and so forth. This juxtaposition of variant versions of events and their careful comparison and evaluation are strong markers of historiographical discourse in general and Herodotus in particular, and also characterise the historical mode of aetiology. Such a historical mode of aetiological explanation can be distinguished from a more mythical mode of aetiology, in which there is no chain of pasts, but instead the present custom or name or practice is explained ‘entirely in mythic terms’ and authorised entirely by the mythic story: ‘any other causal dimension is lost entirely in favour of the authority of the mythic world: myth is the cause’. In narratives such as that in Pindar’s Olympian  telling how Heracles established the use of olive wreaths at the Olympic games, the modern practice or institution is not conceived of as evidence for its mythological origins, that is as a cluster of σήματα from which the mythological account can be reconstructed or as proof that the mythological account of its origins is true, or the beginning of a chain which can be carefully traced back through intermediate signs back to the origin, but as an ancient mythological origin which itself validates and authorises the current practice or institution. The authorising role does not (indeed, cannot) depend on the current practice or institution as evidence for the myth, since the relationship runs in the other direction. It is the myth which proves the modern practice, not the modern practice which proves the myth. A fiction of ‘timeless continuity’ is created between mythic origin and current practice, during which things have not (indeed, could not) change. Kowalzig comments on the expressions commonly used at what we might term the ‘hinge’ connecting mythic origin and ritual present: we find the unchanging continuity from origin to present expressed by such phrases as ἐκ τότε, νῦν γάρ, νῦν δέ, ἐξ οὗ or καί νυν, in which there is no focus on a chain of pasts linking back by stages to the mythic origin, but rather a temporal transcendence ‘from that moment’ to the present.    

 See also Hdt. .. for further customs dating from those events. See pp. – above. Kowalzig : . See Kowalzig : – on the relationship between myth and ritual, esp. her distinction between ‘historical’ aetiology and ‘mythical’ aetiology. Kowalzig :  with n. , who points out it is also possible for the ‘hinge’ to be a local reference such as ἵνα, as at Bacchylides fr. .–.

Explaining Origins and Causes



Such a mode of aetiological explanation is importantly different from historical aetiology and Kowalzig well illustrates this by comparing the ‘methods of deduction’ underlying them. A historian such as Herodotus compares sources and versions, establishing what can be determined through comparison and evaluation, and leaving open the possibility of differing or alternative explanations (as is clear in the account of Aeginetan–Athenian hostility, as we have seen) but a mythical aetiology cannot straightforwardly be questioned, since it sets itself up to be the only authoritative tradition for the custom or practice it explains. In Olympian , for example, there is no space for another, contradictory story of how the olive came to Olympia. The difference between historical and mythical aetiology can also be illustrated by examining the nature of the temporal and geographical connections between past and present made in one of the most important poetic intertexts for the Argonautica, Pindar’s Pythian . Pythian  also tells the story of Jason, Medea and the Argo, but does so within a frame of the encomiastic celebration of a Pythian chariot-race victory by the king of Cyrene, Arcesilas IV. In doing so, it sets up direct connections between the voyage of the Argo (and in particular the actions of the Argonaut Pindar calls Euphamos, in the Doric dialect of the ode), the later prophecy at Delphi given to Battos, who was the founder of Cyrene and ancestor of Arcesilas, the foundation of Cyrene itself, and the celebration of the chariot-race victory. It begins with the Pindaric narrator declaring to the Muse (with epic overtones) that she must stand next to the celebrating king of Cyrene ‘today’ (σάμερον, v. , the first word of the ode). The ode then moves to Delphi, via the debt owed to Pytho for the Pythian victory, ‘where once’ (ἔνθα ποτέ, v. ) it was prophesied that Battos would leave Thera and found Cyrene, and so fulfil in the seventeenth generation ‘the word of Medea’ (τὸ Μηδείας ἔπος, v. ), which ‘once’ (ποτε, v. ) she prophesied to the Argonauts on Thera. We then hear this prophecy in direct speech at great length (some forty-three lines), in which Medea declares that ‘one day from this sea-pounded land’ (τᾶσδ’ ἐξ ἁλιπλάκτου ποτὲ γᾶς, v. ) Libya will receive the root of cities dear to humanity and that ‘that sign’ (κεῖνος ὄρνις, v. ) which ‘once’ (ποτε) Euphamos received in Libya (which we later learn to be the clod given by the god the Argonauts met at Lake Tritonis, vv. –) ‘will bring it to pass’ (ἐκτελευτάσει, v. ) that Thera will be the mother-city of powerful cities. Had the clod not been washed overboard, things would have been different, 

See Goldhill : , Stephens : –, Mori a: .



Explaining the Past

‘but now’ (νῦν γε, v. ) Euphamos will found a people on Lemnos, who will come to ‘this island’ (τάνδε . . . νᾶσον, v. , i.e. Thera) and produce a man (i.e. Battos) to rule the dark-clouded plains (i.e. Cyrene). The prophecy then returns to the oracle Battos ‘once’ (ποτ’, v. ) received at Delphi, about his foundation of Cyrene. There is more detail from the primary narrator in vv. – about that prophecy, and the Pindaric narrator asserts that ‘indeed now later also’ (ἦ μάλα δὴ μετὰ καὶ νῦν), as in its red-flowered springtime (v. ), the eighth generation of the sons of Battos blooms in Arcesilas, the victor of the ode. After the Argonautic myth which dominates the ode (vv. –) the ode returns to Arcesilas via Lemnos, where the seed (σπέρμ’, v. ) of Battiad success was planted, and where the race of Euphamos took root forever (τόθι γὰρ γένος Εὐφάμου φυτευθὲν λοιπὸν αἰεί | τέλλετο, vv. –), ‘in time’ (ποτε) settling on Thera, and ‘thence to you the son of Leto gave the Libyan plain’ (ἔνθεν δ’ ὔμμι Λατοίδας ἔπορεν Λιβύας πεδίον, v. ). The effect of this presentation of the relationship between the present ode, its victor Arcesilas, his ancestor Battos, the foundation of Cyrene by Battos, the creation of the Lemnian forebears of the Therans by Euphamos and the receipt of the Libyan clod by Euphamos from the god, is to create a transcendence between mythical past and celebratory present, which is reinforced by enduring geographical connections. The prophecy about founding Cyrene which Battos receives at Delphi itself ‘brings back’ or ‘redeems’ (ἀγκομίσαι, v. ) Medea’s earlier prophecy on Thera, which in turn asserts that the clod still earlier received in Libya will bring it about that Cyrene is founded from Thera, through the founding of a people on Lemnos by Euphamos and therefore the founding of Cyrene by Battos, both of whom are ancestors of Arcesilas, whose glory is now being celebrated at Delphi. The metaphor of the ‘seed’ of Arcesilas’ ὄλβος (v. ) being planted by Euphamos is instructive: the later founding of Cyrene and the present victory are all in a sense already contained within the clod Euphamos receives and the subsequent begetting of Euphamid Lemnians, as Medea predicts. The mythic past is not related to the present in terms of a chain of causation of a complete series of subsidiary causes and effects, but rather the present is portrayed as already having been 



As Kowalzig :  puts it, ‘[mythical] [a]etiological thinking is thus fundamentally circular; mythical past and ritual present interact at every stage.’ On the temporal levels in Pythian  and their handling in the poem, see also Calame : –. On the importance of ‘place’ in mythical aetiology, see Kowalzig : . On the spatial organisation and the use of places within Pythian , see also Calame : –, –.

Explaining Origins and Causes



contained within the seminal events of the past, as privileged seers and speakers (such as Medea and the Pythia) can reveal. The different historical and mythical modes of aetiological explanation are both important when analysing the aetia in the Argonautica, whose aetiological material is usually considered chiefly in terms of the differences it brings about from earlier epic, but which also makes important use of both the kind of aetiological presentation we see in Olympian  or Pythian  and that employed by historians such as Herodotus. Several critics have rightly observed that the regular connection of present with past in the Argonautica represents an important shift from the situation we encounter in Homer, where the past of epic is almost completely ‘walled off’ and separate from the present of the bard and his audience; the only way of connecting with this mythic past in Homer is through epic song itself, whereas in Apollonius the epic shows us various ways in which the epic past persists to the time of reading itself, ἔτι νῦν περ. Before turning to the historical and mythical modes of aetiology and their relevance for Apollonius, it is worth considering the wider Hellenistic context for connecting past with present, since it is clear that there existed a strong desire in the Hellenistic period to make such connections (and not simply within literature). For example, cult activity at sites associated with Homeric heroes, such as the Polis Cave on Ithaca (Odysseus) and the Agamemnoneion at Mycenae, appears to have intensified in the Hellenistic period, involving in some cases the reorganisation of sanctuaries and new constructions. This has been plausibly connected with the power of the heroic past in the Hellenistic period, especially as expressed in the Homeric poems, and its usefulness in the changed political circumstances of the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Connections with heroes through worship at particular sites associated with them might, Susan Alcock has suggested, serve local élites claiming descent from such heroes by helping to legitimise their position within the polis, but they might also be part of a desire on the part of the wider polis to locate itself within mythic traditions 

 

See on the shattering of the ‘absolute past’ of epic esp. Fusillo : –, with the useful comments of Goldhill : –; the contrast Fusillo : – makes is between the hopes or predictions of heroic characters about the enduring future of a σῆμα or ‘tomb’ (e.g. Od. .–, .–) and the explicit statements about persistence from the past by the Apollonian primary narrator. Cf. also Zanker : , , Bing :  and see in general Valverde Sánchez : – and Köhnken : – on Apollonian aetiology and its distribution in the epic and main characteristics. Cf. the criticism of Goldhill’s approach to the relationship between past and present in ‘entirely in terms of the literary’ at Stephens :  n. . See Alcock : –.



Explaining the Past

in order to assert its identity and origins among the Panhellenic heroes of Homeric epic. Such heroic connections could also, of course, establish links with other cities across the Greek world, which in turn could boost the status of a polis and articulate its identity. Such a desire for expressing identity (and the functions such an identity can serve) is one impulse for the creation of Hellenistic local histories and foundation-stories. A desire to connect with the past might, of course, also be focused on historical figures, rather than mythical ones, and it is also possible to see in the Hellenistic period attempts to suggest a connection with historical antecedents or analogues. In the epigrams of Posidippus, for example, we can see the clear association of the Ptolemies with their (fictitious) ancestor Alexander the Great (e.g. AB , where the Ptolemaic ‘Argead kings’ and Alexander both receive auspicious divine signs), and with the powerful tyrants of Archaic Greece, such as Polycrates (e.g. AB , which deals with the ring of Polycrates) or Periander (e.g. AB , which evokes the tale of Arion and the dolphin). For Posidippus in turn poets such as Arion (associated with the court of Periander, as at Hdt. .–), and Ibycus and Anacreon (associated with Polycrates, as we can see from Ibycus’ encomium for Polycrates, PMGF ), formed obvious analogues for his own activity at the courts of the Hellenistic monarchs. Priestley has further suggested that Herodotus too may have been an important analogue for Posidippus’ royal patronage, since we find there the stories of Arion and the dolphin and Polycrates’ ring (Hdt. .–), and there is a tradition, preserved in the Suda, that Herodotus died at Pella (Η  Adler) after spending time at the Macedonian court (Ε  Adler). It is important, then, to bear in mind these wider tendencies, observable both within and outside Hellenistic literature, towards attempts to connect mythic and historical figures with the contemporary Hellenistic world, since Apollonius was himself working as part of the Ptolemaic court and located within the wider socio-cultural developments of the Hellenistic period. All the same, we must also be carefully attuned to the particular situation as we   

 

See Alcock : –. See pp. – above on local histories and poems in the Hellenistic period. On the desire of Hellenistic poleis for a history, see also Robert , Alcock : –. See Stephens , esp. –, where she describes how Posidippus ‘creates a link between those famous tyrants of old who subvented the arts and the Ptolemies, as well as a link between archaic poets and their successors in this new imperial court.’  See further Acosta-Hughes : –. Priestley : –. Cf. Stephens :  on some previous approaches to Apollonian aetiology, such as Goldhill , which she characterises as ‘if not divorced from contemporary culture, at least sufficiently removed that texts seem to be isolated from it’.

Explaining Origins and Causes



encounter it in Apollonius, and how connections and associations with the past are played out in detail in the Argonautica. When compared with the associations of the Ptolemies with figures from the past created in Posidippus or those attested by the intensification of cult activity at sites associated with Homeric heroes, one of the most distinctive characteristics of the handling of aetiology in the Argonautica is the potential ‘gappiness’ introduced into Apollonian aetia, including the possibility of error (with a present ritual not in fact grounded in mythic events), the existence of alternative accounts or explanation, the potential incompleteness of aetiological explanation, and the problematising of the exemplary quality of the past. As Goldhill in particular has emphasised, ‘aetiology may offer a paradigm of how the past may be seen in the present – but it is a paradigm that is subject to Apollonius’ ceaseless irony and constant testing of the connections between events in a narrative.’ In order fully to understand the relationship of Apollonius’ presentation of aetiology to wider patterns in Hellenistic literature and culture, it is crucial to focus closely on how Apollonius employs various aetiological modes in the Argonautica, and how these resemble and differ from earlier types of aetiological explanation. It is particularly important that the traces that the Argonautic past can leave in the present ‘right up until today’ (εἰσέτι νῦν, .) can be mistaken, as is explicit in the case of Idmon’s tomb (σῆμα), which, though ‘for later generations to see’ (ὀψιγόνοισιν ἰδέσθαι, .), and despite the explicit instructions of Apollo to the Boeotians and Nisaeans (.–), is honoured as that of Agamestor, rather than Idmon (.–). This emphasises the possibility of error and the misinterpretation of σήματα, as we have explored, but it also reveals a conception of the aetiological relationship between past and present rather closer to the historical mode found in Herodotus as opposed to the mythical aetiology of Pythian  or Olympian . The correction the Apollonian narrator makes to present practice εἰσέτι νῦν strongly implies that he thinks he has uncovered a better, more authoritative source or account for the true identity of the tomb: the usual mythic origin for the tomb  

 

Goldhill : . Fusillo : – suggests this example represents an exception to the normal continuity between past and present in aetia, which leads Apollonius to apologise to the Muses, but its character underlines the contingency of the relationship in the epic between the traces of the Argonauts and the ways in which these can (or should) be read, focusing particular attention on the role of the narrator in the correct reconstruction of the past (cf. Goldhill : –). See pp. – above. On the portrayal of the Apollonian narrator working from sources, see Morrison : –.



Explaining the Past

(and hence the city’s guardian) is not in fact able to authorise the present practice of honouring Agamestor (contrast the use of olive at the Olympics in Olympian ), because it turns out to be incorrect. But the possibility of error demonstrates we are emphatically not here dealing with a mythical aetiology straightforwardly of the Pindaric variety. The figure of the narrator himself is also important: he is neither, as we have seen, an authoritative channel for the knowledge of the Muses (as in Homer) nor a Herodotean ‘master of signs’, which destabilises his authority correctly to read the signs he finds and construct his account on them. Shortly after the problematic aetion of the honours for Agamestor we find an example of a very common type of aetion in the Argonautica, the name bequeathed to a place or geographical feature by the mythical past, in this case the river Callichorus and the cave Aulion which the Argonauts pass by (.–), marked with a phrase typical of mythical aetiology, ἐξ οὗ (‘since then’, .) specifying the continuing use of these names by the local inhabitants. But here too we find the mythical mode of aetiology complicated by its presentation in Apollonius, since the mythic event which gives rise to these names, Dionysus’ celebrations at the river and his institution of choruses in front of the cave (.–), is distanced through the use of a ‘they say’ statement, ἐνέπουσι (.). This does not imply that the aetion must be false, but it is another indication of an account being built up from a variety of sources (what different people say), which is more akin to the mode of aetiology found in historiography such as Herodotus, and which robs the aetion of at least some of the authority derived from a mythical origin transcending time and incapable of correction. A similar use of ‘what people say’ can be found in book , in the aetion of the name of Drepane (Corcyra, inhabited by the Phaeacians in the Argonautica), where the Apollonian narrator apologises for the story that the sickle (δρέπανον) after which the island is named is that with which Cronus castrated Uranus (.–), declaring that this is ‘the account of earlier men’ (προτέρων ἔπος, .), and then juxtaposing an alternative version (that of ‘others’, οἱ δέ), who say (κλείουσι) that it is the reaping-hook of Demeter (.–). Here too we find a phrase typical of mythical aetiology linking the past mythic origin with the continuing present (τόθεν, ‘since then’, ., referring to the island’s    

See Fusillo : – on etymological aetia. See Fusillo : , who points out this episode is not part of the Argonautic main narrative. On the function of such ‘they say’ statements in Apollonius see Morrison : –. On Apollonius’ double aetion for the name of Drepane see Vian : –, Dufner : –, Hunter : – and see also pp. – above.

Explaining Origins and Causes



name, Drepane), but the double distancing effects of the attribution of the story to predecessors and the presentation of an alternative version again demonstrate how different this is from a straightforward mythical aetiology. The readers form the impression that the epic is constructed from a number of different sources, and these differing accounts do not all claim the same things about the mythic past. Piecing together the chain reaching from present back to past more closely resembles the historical mode of aetiology, but more importantly the presentation of competing versions and therefore the possibility of error or difference of opinion, and the explicit attribution of aetia to other people, complicate the relationship between past and present and weaken the authoritative transcendence of time between mythic origin and Hellenistic present. The most important aetion from the perspective of problematising connections between past and present in the Argonautica is the most significantly placed one of all, the future creation of Thera from a clod of Libyan earth at the end of book . One of the most striking features of this aetion is, as many critics have observed, the omission of the latter part of the aetiological narrative of the foundation of Cyrene, which is found in different versions in Pindar, Pythian  and Herodotus book . The aetion as narrated in the Argonautica has Euphemus meet Triton and receive the clod, beget descendants on Lemnos, who themselves will move the Thera, which will be created from the clod of earth itself. But the sequel, the foundation of Cyrene from Thera, is not told: the emphasis in the epic falls instead, as we have seen, on Thera and its eponymous founder, Theras (A.R. .–). This closing aetion advertises the gap it contains between past and present, since it does not continue the story to Cyrene, and the narrator declares at its very close that ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν μετόπιν γένετ’ Εὐφήμοιο (‘But these things happened a long time after Euphemus’, .). This statement underlines the gap between (Hellenistic) Thera and Euphemus, but also the still greater gap between Euphemus and the unmentioned Cyrene. Markus Asper has examined the gaps (of different kinds) frequently found in Hellenistic aetiologies, and has argued that the ‘Alexandrian reader, therefore, has to bridge a (geographical and, possibly, biographical or even generational) distance in order to relate such [aetiological] stories to himself’. This gap is created by the    

See, e.g., Vian : –, Calame : –, Köhnken : .  See further Chapter , pp. –. See pp. – above. He pays particular attention to the lack of narrative ‘closure’ in aetiology and the phenomenon of ‘false closure’ in Hellenistic aetiologies. Asper : .



Explaining the Past

nature of Hellenistic aetiologies which are (in Asper’s terms) ‘detached’ rather than ‘embedded’: the latter are ‘local narratives, designed to explain local facts and collective pasts of certain, locally defined communities of which the target audience consists’, a good example being the kind of mythical aetiology in Pindaric epinician which explains the origin of a particular custom or practice to an audience which is a witness of that practice (e.g. the story of the olive at Olympia in Olympian ). Hellenistic aetiologies, by contrast, are much more distanced in a number of ways that their archaic or classical equivalents, notably by often being of locales and customs physically distanced from their audiences. As Asper puts it, ‘Alexandrian audiences could not experience the mythic past as ending with themselves: because they lived somewhere else.’ It is important to consider the readers’ response to such a striking gap: it is not sufficient simply to regard the omission of Cyrene as being equivalent to its inclusion, since the breaking-off of the aetion is placed in a prominent position within the epic and the gap itself underlined, making clear this is a significant aesthetic choice. Nevertheless, it is also clear that most readers would have thought of Cyrene, given the mention of Thera. Asper has commented (from a reader-response perspective) that the gappiness of Hellenistic aetia requires some positive activity on the part of the readers (‘Audiences need to mind the gap and deal with it’), in particular by posing questions such as ‘what does that have to do with us?’, in so doing considering the existence of the gap itself. I suggest such considerations must also have been prominent for readers of the close of the Argonautica and the gap created by omitting Cyrene. But in attempting to reconstruct how this gap would be read, it is important to advert to the broader treatment of aetia in the epic, in particular the problematising of the connection between past and present we have observed in the combination of mythical and historical modes of aetiology, and more generally to the treatment of exemplarity in the poem, since it is sometimes implied that the unmentioned Cyrene is supposed to function as a straightforward, unproblematic, uncomplicated analogue for Alexandria and Greek presence in North Africa.

   

 Asper : . Asper : . Contrast also the very different place of Cyrene in the account of Pythian , for example. See Calame : – and pp. – above. So also Stephens : –, , Hunter : –, : . Asper : . See also for different views of how such gaps might (or might not) be bridged Zanker : , , Bing : , Goldhill : –.

Explaining Origins and Causes



Simon Goldhill, in particular, has drawn attention to the problematic manner in which the exempla employed by the characters are presented in the poem, as exemplified by the significant selectivity and incompleteness of the Ariadne parallel adduced by Jason to Medea at .–, in which Theseus is saved from harsh trials by the maiden Ariadne and she leaves with Theseus. The parallels, however, are incomplete. Jason omits her later abandonment, and Medea herself marks the differences between their situation and that of Ariadne, Theseus and Minos: οὐδ’ Ἀριάδνῃ | ἰσοῦμαι, ‘nor do I liken myself to Ariadne’ (.–). Goldhill sees the deployment of exempla by the characters in the poem as part of a wider ‘fracturing’ of exemplarity in the Argonautica, in which how the past is exemplary is brought into question, for instance through the memorialisation in cult of the defeated Doliones and their king, despite the ironised circumstances of their defeat. It is in such a context that we should see the pointed omission of Cyrene in the aetion of the close of the epic. As Asper and Goldhill both emphasise, the readers of the poem play a key role in interpreting the significance of the events, places and characters of the past for the present, and the omission of Cyrene is a crucial gap which requires such interpretation. Given the wider problematising of exemplarity in the Argonautica, I suggest that the absence of Cyrene as the endpoint of the aetion underlines the problems emphasised in the epic in connecting the σήματα left by the past with their presumed origin in the mythic past, because of the contingency and uncertainty of connections between past and present, which in turn casts into doubt the ability of the characters of the epic to function straightforwardly as analogues or exemplars for contemporary Hellenistic figures. When Triton has given Euphemus the clod, which is the key moment in the aetion both as narrated in the poem, in that the clod will itself become the island of Thera (.–), and in the omitted story of the foundation of Cyrene, which in Pindar (for example) characterises the foundation of the city as a kind of return, the Apollonian narrator then tells of σήματα νηός (‘signs of the ship’, .) at the ‘harbour of the Argo’ at the place where Triton appeared to the Argonauts in his true form. These traces of the ship might be akin to the anchor-stone the Argonauts leave behind at the spring of Artacie near Cyzicus (.–), having replaced it with a heavier one. But we are not told   

 Goldhill : –. Goldhill : –. Goldhill’s illuminating discussion encompasses the use of similes and the ekphrasis of Jason’s cloak, as well as the deployment of exempla by characters (see, e.g., Goldhill : –).  Goldhill : –. Cf. e.g. Malkin : –, Stephens : , : .



Explaining the Past

what these σήματα are: they are themselves an indication of the construction of the Argonautic narrative from such signs, and as such a reminder of the reconstruction of the chain of pasts of historical aetiology, but the lack of detail about their character means we cannot be sure what traces the Argonauts did in fact leave behind. These σήματα are gappy, and the potential gappiness of σήματα in the Argonautica works against its aetiologies operating in the time-transcending manner of mythical aetiology, but also importantly modifies the historical mode of aetiology. Traces and signs connecting past and present in the poem can, as we have seen, be misread or mistaken, and they can also be lost or irrecoverable, as when the Argonauts are in the Libyan desert and set out to search for Heracles the narrator tells us that his ‘tracks’ (ἴχνια, .) have been effaced by the night-winds. The σήματα νηός are also lost to the readers of the epic and the gappy, contingent character of signs and traces in the poem should not be overlooked when considering how the past and present are to be connected by its readers. How then should readers read the omission of Cyrene? Richard Hunter has recently emphasised the importance of the point at which the aetion in fact culminates in the poem, the creation of Thera, alongside the appearance and naming of Anaphe (.–), which he views as a ‘diptych of “island creation”’ which offers a vision of the ‘creation of the Greek homeland’ which should be seen as just as important as the fact that the Euphemus story will lead to Greek presence in North Africa. This is an important observation and takes seriously the emphasis placed on Thera (and Anaphe) in the poem itself. From our perspective in examining how Apollonius employs and distorts elements of historiographical discourse in the Argonautica, the omission of Cyrene at the end of the epic demonstrates the differences between the Argonautica and local epics or foundation-stories, since it explicitly breaks off the aetiological narrative before we reach what would have been the analogue for Alexandria. It also demonstrates the differences between the Argonautica’s handling of connections between heroic past and Hellenistic present when compared to wider patterns in the Hellenistic period to ground particular peoples or poleis in the mythic past, and illustrates the crucial role played by distorting elements characteristic of historiography (such as historical aetiology) and combining them with those more characteristic of mythological poetry. There are also consequences for some political readings of the poem, in 

Hunter : –. See also Hunter :  and the connections between Anaphe and Thera suggested at Calame : –.

Explaining Motivations



particular views that treat the Argonautic narrative of the poem as foil for the origin of Greek presence in North Africa, such as Mori’s suggestion that ‘Jason’s quest is merely [my italics] the heroic frame for what really matters: the establishment of a Greek community in northern Africa.’ I have argued, however, that we should read the pointed omission of Cyrene (and the focus on Theras and Thera) as meaningful, and as pointing us to the difficulty and uncertainty of connections to the past and the problematising of exemplarity which are emphasised in the poem. The parallel of Moschus’ Europa is helpful: at the close of that poem too we do not find the expected aetion of the name of the continent of Europe for which the poem had apparently carefully prepared us, through an ostentatious periphrasis for the continent at v.  (Ἀσίδα τ’ ἀντιπέρην τε, ‘Asia and the one opposite’), and instead the poem closes with Europa becoming a mother. Readers of the Europa cannot fail to think of the naming of the continent, which aetiology is clearly omitted, but the omission should not be written out of the poem. Earlier critics sometimes suspected the poem (because of the omission) must therefore be incomplete, but now the absence of the expected aetion is usually (and rightly) read as part of the concentration in the poem on Europa’s erotic experience as ‘universal’. Likewise it is important to take seriously the omission of the aetion of the foundation of Cyrene in the Argonautica.

Explaining Motivations Human action, speech, emotion and their motivation and explanation (for example in terms of the type of person a particular character is) are also prominent concerns in both Herodotus and Apollonius. In particular, the difficulties in reconstructing motivation and explaining human actions which Herodotus emphasises, alongside the problems he highlights in generalising about human behaviour, are important reference-points for analysing Apollonius’ presentation of explanations of human motivation in the Argonautica. Although speculation and surmise about an individual’s mental states is identified by Cohn as one of the characteristics of historical or biographical narrative in general, the processes of inference and explanation of why individuals acted as they did are particularly clearly   

 Mori a: . See Hopkinson : –, Fantuzzi & Hunter : . See, e.g., Fantuzzi & Hunter : –, Hunter : , Sistakou : , Smart : –. On the ‘conjectural and inferential syntax’ as the commonest marker of such narratives, see Cohn : .



Explaining the Past

underlined in Herodotus as compared with other ancient historiographers, suggesting he was particularly important for Apollonius’ exploitation of the difficulties of reconstructing human motivation. There is in Herodotus a significant degree of instability and idiosyncrasy in the actions of individuals: the actions of a historical individual such as Cambyses, for example, are not predictable from the kinds of things we might expect Persians or Persian kings to do, nor can we infer the general kinds of actions these larger groups would perform from the actions of that individual. As a comment on Herodotean history in this respect, at least, Aristotle’s famous characterisation in the Poetics of history as compared with poetry is insightful. In Aristotle’s view poetry is both ‘more philosophical’ (φιλοσοφώτερον) and ‘more serious’ (σπουδαιότερον) than history (b–) because history is about ‘particulars’ (τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστον) and poetry about ‘universals’ (τὰ καθόλου, b). Poetry, from Aristotle’s perspective, can construct the actions and motives of characters in order to identify universals, because it is less closely tied to what particular historical individuals, such as Alcibiades, thought or did. Herodotus, however, problematises the very notion that there are things certain kinds of people do. It is perhaps for this reason, from Aristotle’s point of view,  









See pp. – below. Cambyses, for example, fatally stabs the Apis bull (Hdt. .), which the Egyptians regard as divine, despite Persian openness to foreign customs (Hdt. ..), the restrictions on executions by the king (Hdt. ..) and the strictures on Persian sacrifice (Hdt. .). See Baragwanath : –. Poetics ch. , a–b. Aristotle clearly has Herodotus in mind: he characterises the historian as speaking of τὰ γενόμενα (‘what has happened’), in contrast to the poet who deals with οἷα ἂν γένοιτο (‘the sort of thing that does happen’, ‘the sort of thing that might be expected to happen’, b–), which is reminiscent of the first line of the Histories and their focus on τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων (‘what has happened among men’, Hdt. . prol.), and picks out Herodotus by name when making the point that the presence or absence of metre is not a sufficient distinction for poetry and history: εἴη γὰρ ἂν τὰ Ἡροδότου εἰς μέτρα τεθῆναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἂν εἴη ἱστορία τις μετὰ μέτρου ἢ ἄνευ μέτρων (‘since the work of Herodotus could be put into verse and would be no less a history in verse than in prose’, b–). It is clear from Aristotle’s further discussion of universals and particulars that he is in this section interested not only in events but also in human action and motivation: ἔστιν δὲ καθόλου μέν, τῷ ποίῳ τὰ ποῖα ἄττα συμβαίνει λέγειν ἢ πράττειν κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον, οὗ στοχάζεται ἡ ποίησις ὀνόματα ἐπιτιθεμένη· τὸ δὲ καθ’ ἕκαστον, τί Ἀλκιβιάδης ἔπραξεν ἢ τί ἔπαθεν (‘A universal is the kind of thing a particular kind of person tends to say or do according to probability or necessity, which is what poetry aims at, despite its naming these people. A particular is what Alcibiades did or experienced’, b–). Herodotus is himself aware of the constraints of history in this regard in contrast to the freedom of epic: he comments at Hdt. .. that Homer is clearly aware of the story of Helen’s sojourn in Egypt, but prefers a different version because of demands of epic poetry. Cf. Asheri et al. : . Epic poets can control and formulate material in this manner, but historians cannot. See also Darbo-Peschanski : – in general on the provisional, non-generisable character of Herodotus’ account.

Explaining Motivations



that he believes that Herodotus’ history cannot (or cannot easily) be about universals. Some critics, of course, uncomfortable with Aristotle’s apparent hostility to history, have sometimes sought to respond by citing historians, especially Thucydides, who do direct their attention to universals, and whom they suggest Aristotle fails to take properly into account. But the Aristotelian response to those who object that Thucydidean universalising history is rather different would perhaps be that Thucydides turns history into a kind of poetry, by generalising about human actions and their motivations from particular instances. Nevertheless, though Herodotus may problematise the notion of making generalisations about human behaviour, he does not reject this possibility outright. As we have seen, the investigation of motivation and the reasons prompting particular human actions is central to Herodotus’ historical project, which examines why the conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks arose (Hdt. . prol.). But the discovery and reconstruction of the emotions and intentions of human agents in historical events is not easy, as Herodotus often emphasises. One important factor here is the possibility of irrational or abnormal motivations or emotions leading to unpredictable or inexplicable actions. Emily Baragwanath’s important analysis of the presentation of human motivation in Herodotus has drawn attention, among other things, to the significance of the treatment of the Persian Oroetes’ hostility to Polycrates, tyrant of Samos: οὗτος ἐπεθύμησε πρήγματος οὐκ ὁσίου· οὔτε γάρ τι παθὼν οὔτε ἀκούσας μάταιον ἔπος πρὸς Πολυκράτεος τοῦ Σαμίου, οὐδὲ ἰδὼν πρότερον, ἐπεθύμεε λαβὼν αὐτὸν ἀπολέσαι (‘[T]his man conceived a desire for an unholy act: though he had never suffered anything or heard an offensive word from Polycrates of Samos, nor had seen him previously, he desired to seize and kill him’, Hdt. ..). There are different explanations offered by different people, Herodotus reports, for this desire: either the insult Oroetes received at the hands of another Persian Mitrobates, who taunted Oroetes with the fact that Samos was nearby but unconquered (Hdt. ..–), or the dismissive treatment given by Polycrates to a herald from Oroetes (Hdt. .). But neither explanation seems adequate; as Herodotus points out, the first is peculiar since the anger of Oroetes ought to have been directed at Mitrobates (Hdt. ..) while the latter appears

 

  Cf. e.g. de Ste Croix : –. Cf. Baragwanath : . See pp. – above. See Baragwanath : –. Baragwanath’s work is fundamental to a proper understanding of the relationship between Herodotean and Apollonian portrayals of human motivation and action.



Explaining the Past

insufficient (Polycrates’ lack of attention to the herald might even have been accidental, Hdt. ..). Herodotus’ closing comment on Oroetes’ motivation seems to advertise their inadequacy and the attendant difficulty of reconstructing motivation from action: αἰτίαι μὲν δὴ αὗται διφάσιαι λέγονται τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ Πολυκράτεος γενέσθαι, πάρεστι δὲ πείθεσθαι ὁκοτέρῃ τις βούλεται αὐτέων (‘these are the two reasons given for the death of Polycrates, and one can believe whichever of them one wants’, Hdt. ..). It is particularly distinctive of Herodotus to highlight the difficulties of reconstructing human motivation. For Baragwanath the abnormal psychology and unpredictable action in the episode of Polycrates’ death is part of a wider stress in Herodotus (in marked contrast to Thucydides) on the difficulty of working from a character’s actions back to their motivation. Human emotion, the susceptibility of characters to change and the possibility of entirely irrational action introduce a significant degree of uncertainty between characters’ motivations and their actions which mean it is difficult both to predict what particular individuals (or types of individual) will do and difficult to reason back to why they acted as they did. But while this foregrounds the difficulty of the historian’s task and the problems he has in acquiring knowledge of individuals’ mental states, there are, nevertheless, valid historiographical strategies for addressing (though not eliminating) these problems. One is the presentation of different possible motivations, which we have already seen Herodotus employ with reference to Oroetes above, which is itself part of a wider pattern in Herodotus of the presentation alternative narrative versions. The marking of different possible motivations advertises the difficulty in reconstructing motivation but it also begins to limit (and, in some cases, rank) the possibilities. Another strategy is to direct attention at the nomoi or practices (and their rationales) of whole peoples or groups of peoples. The long ethnographic sections of the Histories have obvious relevance in explaining the outcome of historical events, such as the inability of Darius to defeat the Scythians (Hdt. .–) being explained in part by their nomadic lifestyle (Hdt. ., , .), but the nomoi of a given group to which particular individuals belong is also often invoked to  



 Baragwanath : –, . See Baragwanath : . Baragwanath : , Lateiner : –. See further on alternative versions pp. – above. The working of alternative versions in Herodotus is complex, as Baragwanath : – demonstrates. As the Scythian king Idanthyrsus says to Darius, ‘We have neither cities nor cultivated land, about which to fear capture or ravaging, so that we would sooner join you in battle’ (ἡμῖν οὔτε ἄστεα οὔτε

Explaining Motivations



explain specific actions by individuals or groups of individuals, as when the action of the Scythian king Saulius in killing Anacharsis on seeing him perform Cyzicene rites to the mother of the gods (Hdt. ..) is explained in terms of the general Scythian intense aversion to adopting the customs of other peoples, especially Greeks (Hdt. ..). Outside the ethnographic sections, too, cultural differences between groups (in this case the treatment of subordinates) clearly explain the different behaviour of individuals, as when the Persian Megabates orders the physical maltreatment of the ship’s captain Scylax (he is thrust through an oar-hole and tied up, head outside and body within, Hdt. ..), to which Aristagoras of Miletus reacts by first appealing to Megabates for his guest-friend’s release, and then untying him himself (Hdt. ..). But though ethnic nomoi clearly are significant in explaining particular actions, it is also an exaggeration to say (with Harrison) that most actions in Herodotus ‘appear to be performed as a result of the automatic, almost robotic, fulfilment of human customs or nomoi’, since there are some striking examples of important individuals acting contrary to their nomoi. Here the figure of Cambyses is again instructive: his behaviour with regard to the mummified corpse of the Egyptian Amasis, which he orders to be burnt, in contravention of both Persian and Egyptian custom, demonstrates that individuals may always act counter to the nomoi of the people to whom they belong. Cambyses was ‘not entirely sane’ (ἐὼν οὐδὲ πρότερον φρενήρης, Hdt. ..) and becomes mad, but his very irrationality is a reminder that human actions cannot always be adequately explained in terms of wider patterns of behaviour, nor such wider patterns always reliably inferred from individuals’ actions. Other anomalous individuals also act counter to their nomoi: Anacharsis is a Scythian, but his cleverness makes him exceptional (though Herodotus excepts the Scythians as a whole from his assertion that the Black Sea is home to the ‘most ignorant peoples’, ἔθνεα ἀμαθέστατα,



 

γῆ πεφυτευμένη ἐστί, τῶν πέρι δείσαντες μὴ ἁλῷ ἢ καρῇ ταχύτερον ἂν ὑμῖν συμμίσγοιμεν ἐς μάχην, Hdt. ..). See Bowie : . The same is true of the death of Scyles at the hands of his brother Octamasades, who beheads him because of his adoption of Greek customs, as Herodotus explains ‘Such is the way the Scythians defend their customs, exacting such penalties from those who adopt foreign customs’ (οὕτω μὲν περιστέλλουσι τὰ σφέτερα νόμαια Σκύθαι, τοῖσι δὲ παρακτωμένοισι ξεινικοὺς νόμους τοιαῦτα ἐπιτίμια διδοῦσι, Hdt. ..). Harrison : – and see further Baragwanath :  on the problems with this view. See Baragwanath : –, who also notes the juxtaposition at Hdt. .– of comments on the nomoi of Persians in treating kings’ sons (and the potential treatment of Psammenitus who is one such but rebels against Persian rule) and the behaviour of Cambyses towards Amasis’ corpse, suggesting that the effect is to emphasise that Cambyses (unlike most Persians) is not influenced by any Persian customs.



Explaining the Past

Hdt. ..), and his interest in foreign peoples and practices makes him the precise opposite of Scythians as a group, as we have seen: οὗτος μέν νυν οὕτω δὴ ἔπρηξε διὰ ξεινικά τε νόμαια καὶ Ἑλληνικὰς ὁμιλίας (‘This is what happened to that man because of foreign customs and associating with Greeks’, Hdt. ..). Anacharsis’ interest in foreigners is rather reminiscent of Herodotus’, but it could not be inferred from the interest of Scythians as a group, since it is not ‘the kind of thing’ a Scythian does. In Apollonius too the link between a character’s actions (or inaction) and their motivation is often made problematic, and we find the difficulties in working from generalisations about ethnic groups or types of character to their likely actions (and vice versa) foregrounded in important ways. The affinities of Apollonius’ treatment of the difficulties in determining the motivation of his characters with the patterns we have observed in Herodotus is another important aspect of the use of the historiographical mode to mark out a clear distance from Apollonius’ epic modello-codice, since in Homeric epic (in contrast to the Argonautica), we normally find explicit specification of the motivation of its characters. However, as we have already seen in Chapter , the lack of knowledge the narrator of the Argonautica often exhibits about the motivation of Jason, in particular, is very different and more closely associated with the norms of historical rather than fictional narrative (as conceived of by Cohn). Much recent scholarship on characterisation in the Argonautica has profitably explored the problematic character of Jason and the way in which his precise emotions and intentions are left opaque by the primary narrator on several occasions. His silence sometimes prompts anger on the part of other characters (notably Idas at A.R. .– and Telamon at A.R. .–), but often his lack of words or action is simply noted by the narrator in a way which leaves us unsure as to why he eventually acts as he does, as when he confronts the challenge set him by Aietes to yoke the fire-breathing oxen and sow the dragon’s teeth (A.R. .–). Jason stares in silence at the ground, ‘helpless in his misery’ (ἀμηχανέων κακότητι, .) and though he broods on a plan for a long time, we are told that ‘he had no way of taking it on confidently, since the task appeared huge’ (οὐδέ πῃ εἶχεν | θαρσαλέως ὑποδέχθαι, ἐπεὶ μέγα φαίνετο     

 See Baragwanath : , Richardson : –. See pp. – above. See pp. – above. See, e.g., Hunter , : –, Fantuzzi & Hunter : –. See Mori  on the latter confrontation and its subsequent reconciliation. Further examples of silence or helplessness on the part of different characters include: A.R. . (Heracles), .– (Jason), . (Jason and Medea), . (Jason and Medea).

Explaining Motivations



ἔργον, .–). Then, however, we are told he responded ‘at last’ (ὀψέ, .), and Jason announces that he will accept the task (τῶ καὶ ἐγὼ τὸν ἄεθλον ὑπερφίαλόν περ ἐόντα | τλήσομαι, ‘and so I too will endure the contest, though it is great’, A.R. .–), even though it may mean his death (εἰ καί μοι θανέειν μόρος, A.R. .). The end of this speech returns to his ἀμηχανίη (‘helplessness’), by telling us that ‘thus he spoke, struck by helplessness’ (ὣς φάτ’ ἀμηχανίῃ βεβολημένος, A.R. .). Jason’s helplessness and silence often leaves his precise state of mind open to question (as when Idas and Telamon react with anger), but here the effect is slightly different: what is puzzling is how someone who is twice described as ‘helpless’ (, ) and who finds no means by which to accept the task ‘confidently’ (θαρσαλέως, ) should speak as he does, and accept the challenge with words described as ‘profitable’ (κερδαλέοισιν, ). Where (one might ask) did this speech come from? We are not told here that there is the intervention of a god, but the description of Jason’s mental state serves rather to prompt questions about his thought processes than to explain them. Something similar is true of the speech Peleus gives when he volunteers to substitute for Jason in the tasks of Aietes (A.R. .–), after we hear a description of the despair of the Argonauts as a group (A.R. .–). Again the contest appears ‘impossible’ (ἀνήνυτος, ) to everyone (πάντεσσι, ), and the Argonauts are all afflicted by silence and speechlessness, ‘downcast in bewilderment and helplessness’ (ἄτῃ ἀμηχανίῃ τε κατηφέες, ). But then Peleus, without further explanation, speaks ‘confidently’ (θαρσαλέως, ): all we are told is that this happens ‘at last’ (ὀψέ, ), as we were earlier about Jason’s speech to Aietes (ὀψέ, ). We are not told, however, what drives this sudden bravery on Peleus’ part (again one suspects divine intervention, but we are given no indication of this in the narrative). Here we can see a considerable gap between the actions of characters and their motivations, about which we hear either too little or just enough to raise more questions. From one perspective we can 



On the interpretation of κερδαλέοισιν here see Vian : –; Hunter :  nn. ,  suspects corruption, but in part the jarring gloss on Jason’s words may be meant to underline the gaps in our access to his thought process and the role of the gods. Contrast the very similar scene after the death of Tiphys, where the Argonauts’ despair is broken by Ancaeus’ confident speech at A.R. .– which is explained by the intervention of Hera (εἰ μὴ ἄρ’ Ἀγκαίῳ περιώσιον ἔμβαλεν Ἥρη | θάρσος, ‘if Hera had not put tremendous bravery into Ancaeus’, A.R. .–). Cf. also the plan of Arete to prevent Medea from being given up to the Colchians at A.R. .– (though the confirmation that Hera intervened is delayed until some time after Arete’s informing Jason of Alcinous’ intentions, which is at .–) or the decision of Medea at A.R. .– not to commit suicide (Ἥρης ἐννεσίῃσι μετάτροπος, ‘changing her mind at the prompting of Hera’, ).



Explaining the Past

see this as an aspect of the narrator’s (lack of ) knowledge of the events he is describing, which assimilates his narrative to a historical one constructed (or reconstructed) from partial and incomplete sources, but it is also related to the frequent absence of a close connection in the Argonautica between a character’s actions and his intentions or motivation, which strongly resembles of Herodotus’ problematising of the connection between what an individual does and why he does it. As we have already seen, in the Argonautica we regularly find the motivations of characters marked as inferences by the primary narrator (e.g. the explanation that the Lemnian women come armed to the beach because no doubt (που) they imagine the Argonauts are the Thracians at A.R. .–), which suggests the possibility that the motivation or intention of the character might in fact have been different. The problems in reconstructing motivation are more explicit when the narrator asks a question about the intentions of Phineus in directing the Argonauts to the island of Ares (A.R. .–) and most strikingly of all at the beginning of book , when the narrator is uncertain which alternative better explains Medea’s actions in fleeing the Colchian people, ‘love-tormented pain of infatuation’ (ἄτης πῆμα δυσίμερον, A.R. .) or ‘shameful flight’ (φύζαν ἀεικελίην, A.R. .). I suggested in Chapter  that we should see such inferences about and discussion of motivation as a feature more reminiscent of historical rather than fictional narrative, but we should also see Apollonius as developing here a particularly Herodotean view of the difficulties in moving from action to motivation. Accordingly the Argonautica also explores, particularly in the second half of the poem, the question of whether and how individuals conform to the nomoi of their people. How people behave is also a concern of the characters themselves, as is natural in a story which depicts people from different parts of the world coming into contact with one another. Jason, for example, decides to meet Aietes and discuss the friendly handing over of the golden fleece because he reasons that Aietes has acted hospitably before and all men respect the institution of xenia: ὁ δὲ καί ποτ’ ἀμύμονα Φρίξον ἔδεκτο μητρυιῆς φεύγοντα δόλον πατρός τε θυηλάς, πάντες ἐπεὶ πάντῃ καὶ ὅ τις μάλα κύντατος ἀνδρῶν, Ξεινίου αἰδεῖται Ζηνὸς θέμιν ἠδ’ ἀλεγίζει.

(A.R. . )

 

See also pp. – above and Morrison : – for further examples.  See pp. – above. See pp. – above.

Explaining Motivations



And he also once received blameless Phrixus, when he was fleeing from his stepmother’s trickery and the sacrifices of his father, since everyone everywhere, even the most shameless of men, respect and observe the law of Zeus Xeinios.

Though this has unsettling echoes of the words of Odysseus to the Cyclops in the Odyssey, whose treatment of his guests is a reminder that xenia is not universal, Aietes does feel himself bound to some degree by xenia, since he welcomes the Argonauts and the sons of Phrixus with a meal (A.R. .–) and does not kill the Argonauts immediately on hearing that they are seeking the fleece, because they have shared his table (A.R. .–). Aietes is conforming to nomoi which govern Colchians as well as Greeks, but he is sorely tempted to break these customs, as the narrator reveals to us: τοῖο δὲ θυμὸς διχθαδίην πόρφυρεν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι μενοινήν, ἤ σφεας ὁρμηθεὶς αὐτοσχεδὸν ἐξεναρίζοι, ἦ ὅ γε πειρήσαιτο βίης. τό οἱ εἴσατ’ ἄρειον φραζομένῳ·

(A.R. . )

His heart brooded a double plan in his chest, either to attack and kill them straightaway or to make trial of their strength. This seemed better to him as he deliberated.

If Aietes had surrendered to the desire to kill them immediately he would have broken one Colchian custom, but he would perhaps have been acting in line with another aspect of Colchian behaviour, if we can trust Medea’s characterisation of their observation of agreements: Ἑλλάδι που τάδε καλά, συνημοσύνας ἀλεγύνειν. Αἰήτης δ’ οὐ τοῖος ἐν ἀνδράσιν, οἷον ἔειπας Μίνω Πασιφάης πόσιν ἔμμεναι.

(A.R. . )

In Hellas I suppose it is right to honour agreements, but Aietes is not such a one among men as you said Minos, husband of Pasiphae, was.





See Hunter : . Odysseus tells the Cyclops that he and his men have come to him εἴ τι πόροις ξεινήιον ἠὲ καὶ ἄλλως | δοίης δωτίνην, ἥ τε ξείνων θέμις ἐστίν (‘[to see] if you will provide us with hospitality or give us a present, as is the right of guests’, Od. .–) and reminds him that Ζεὺς δ’ ἐπιτιμήτωρ ἱκετάων τε ξείνων τε, | ξείνιος, ὃς ξείνοισιν ἅμ’ αἰδοίοισιν ὀπηδεῖ (‘Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and guests, and accompanies honoured guests’, Od. .–). As the Cyclops explains: οὐ γὰρ Κύκλωπες Διὸς αἰγιόχου ἀλέγουσιν | οὐδὲ θεῶν μακάρων (‘Because the Cyclopes do not take heed of aegis-bearing Zeus nor the blessed gods’, Od. .–).



Explaining the Past

Medea has Aietes’ own behaviour in mind, but the implication is that agreements are not routinely observed as she imagines (που, ) they are in Greece. We have already seen something of the apparent faithlessness of Colchians in the person of Medea herself, since she is prepared to invoke their highest oath (Κόλχων ὅρκος ὑπέρβιος, ‘the highest oath of the Colchians’, .) in her deception of her sister, whom she misleads into believing that Medea is concerned for the fate of her children, the sons of Phrixus, rather than Jason (A.R. .–). But as in Herodotus where we encounter individuals whose behaviour is not straightforwardly explicable in terms of their cultural norms, so in Apollonius there are episodes and incidents which in general destabilise the idea that individuals act in accordance with the nomoi of their people and in particular undermine Medea’s vision of faithful Greeks and perfidious Colchians. When in the Adriatic the Argonauts are overtaken and outflanked by the Colchians led by Medea’s brother Apsyrtus, the Argonauts avoid certain defeat in battle at the hands of greater numbers by making an ‘agreement’ (συνθεσίην, A.R. .) with the Colchians. Under this deal the Argonauts will keep the fleece, having successfully completed the tasks set by Aietes, but they will entrust the question of the future of Medea to a local king for a decision as to her return to Colchis or progress to Greece (A.R. .–). Medea views this itself as an act of betrayal, given Jason’s oaths and promises to her (ποῦ τοι Διὸς Ἱκεσίοιο | ὅρκια, ποῦ δὲ μελιχραὶ ὑποσχεσίαι βεβάασιν; ‘Where are your oaths by Zeus, god of suppliants, where have your honeyed promises gone?’, A.R. .–) and predicts that the curses she will call down on Jason if he abandons her will be fulfilled: τὰ μὲν οὐ θέμις ἀκράαντα ἐν γαίῃ πεσέειν, μάλα γὰρ μέγαν ἤλιτες ὅρκον, νηλεές· ἀλλ’ οὔ θήν μοι ἐπιλλίζοντες ὀπίσσω δὴν ἔσσεσθ’ εὔκηλοι ἕκητί γε συνθεσιάων.

(A.R. . )

It is not right that these things should fall to ground unfulfilled, since you have broken a very great oath, pitiless man. But you will not sit here at ease for long mocking me into the future, for all your agreements.

 

Cf. the promise of marriage Jason makes at A.R. .–, and his oath to the same effect at A.R. .–. On Medea’s curses here see Fränkel : . There is a clear foreshadowing of Jason’s eventual abandonment of Medea at Corinth (and its terrible consequences), as depicted in Euripides’ Medea. See also pp. –, –.

Explaining Motivations



Medea thus presents Jason with the choice of breaking his oath and promise of marriage or breaking his agreement with Apsyrtus. But Jason, it becomes clear, is devious and quite prepared to break his pact with Apsyrtus, which is in fact a trap: ἥδε δὲ συνθεσίη κρανέει δόλον, ᾧ μιν ἐς ἄτην | βήσομεν (‘This agreement allows a trick, by which we will bring him to his doom’, A.R. .–). It is worth noting that this is one of the Argonautic passages where Dufner sees Apollonius playing out his epicising of the Persian version of the abduction of Medea in Herodotus’ proem, with its picture of failed international diplomacy. It is important that it is Jason who first suggests the possibility of using the pact as a means of killing Apsyrtus – this is not simply a ‘Colchian’ plan devised by Medea, though she offers the precise means by which her brother will be deceived and killed (A.R. .–). Medea’s portrayal of the Colchians as faithless thus seems confirmed by her own behaviour and that of her brother: it is significant that part of the lure of Apsyrtus into the ambush in which he is killed is the possibility of concocting his own ‘plot’ or ‘trick’ with Medea: the heralds she instructs are to persuade him to come to her alone at night ‘so that she might devise with him a plot’ (ὄφρα δόλον συμφράσσεται, A.R. .) and Apsyrtus himself tests his sister ‘to determine if she would devise a plot against the foreign men’ (εἴ κε δόλον ξείνοισιν ἐπ’ ἀνδράσι τεχνήσαιτο, A.R. .). But Jason’s involvement in the conception of the idea of the killing as well as the killing itself emphasises that deceit and faithlessness are not exclusively Colchian, as Medea’s experience at Jason’s hands in the future will further confirm. Hence the sharp separation of nomoi envisaged by Medea in book  is shown to be mistaken, and the differences between Greeks and Colchians diminished. And we might also see in the presentation of the motivation of Jason and Medea another destabilising of ethnic stereotypes, since the detailed access to Medea’s mental state which we receive in book  in particular (e.g. at A.R. .–, .–) means that our knowledge of why she acts as she does is extensive, while Jason’s motivation is, as we have seen, often opaque. This to some degree reverses the stereotype of the difficult, unpredictable foreigner (and woman) from a Greek perspective, which underlies Medea’s portrayal in Euripides, for example, since we know much more about what Medea is thinking and why she does things than we do with regard to Jason. This is not to say that the instability or variability in the character of Medea to which several critics have drawn  

Dufner : – and see pp. – above. Cf. Hunter : .



Cf. Euripides, Medea –.



Explaining the Past

attention is not present, especially in book , but that by making her reasons for action more explicit than Jason’s Apollonius undermines one prominent aspect of the characterisation of the Euripidean Jason and Medea in a way which works against portraying Medea as different or ‘other’ (whatever other such alienating elements her characterisation contains, such as a strong sense of her power and dangerousness).

Conclusions We have examined in this chapter the complex use Apollonius makes in his epic of different types of explanation and have found important similarities between, for example, the character of his aetiological narratives and those of Herodotus, as well as significant parallels between the Argonautica and the Histories in their explanation of human motivation and action. In particular, we have seen that Apollonius’ combination of the modes of mythical and historical aetiology is part of a wider destabilising in the epic of the connections between past and present, which works against establishing a secure or straightforward relationship between mythic past and Hellenistic present. The Argonauts have left many traces behind, but Apollonius also flags the possibility of mistaking or misreading these traces, and the problems in their interpretation. The mythic past cannot simply be read off the σήματα in the landscape or in the stories about the past. The contingency and fragility of connections between past and present is in turn part of a wider problematising of exemplarity in the epic, which works against interpreting figures, institutions or events as uncomplicated analogues or equivalents for counterparts in the Hellenistic kingdoms. Let us return to the explanation of human motivation and to Aristotle. Dorothea Frede has noted the importance for our understanding of the Poetics of Aristotle’s teleological, psychologically determinist conception of human action: an individual’s decision to perform a particular action is determined by his or her internal moral dispositions, which means that human actions are in principle predictable (given sufficient knowledge of a particular character) and regular. Aristotle is, nevertheless, aware of the practical limitations of prediction (and by extension the reconstruction of motive from action), since there are in fact innumerable accidental events   

Cf. Hunter , : –, Clare : –. For Medea’s potential for destruction and the level of her power see A.R. .–. See Frede :  and cf. Arist. EN .–, .– (regularity of human action), Metaph. Θ, a– (necessity of the actualisation of the potential).

Conclusions



which can affect and disrupt this process. History is bound to record these accidents as well, in Aristotle’s view, making it impossible to discern the patterns of regular behaviour among the chaos of chance events. But poetry can instead highlight these patterns, because it is not bound to record accidents and can focus instead on the universals of human behaviour. Apollonius in his epic poem, however, treats human motivation and its connection to action in a manner similar to that of Herodotus, thus undermining the possibility of universalising about human behaviour, and introduces a considerable element of uncertainty in the move from motivation to action. We are often not given, in Apollonius, enough information accurately to predict or understand an individual’s actions and we are left to speculate about the interference from other factors (such as the gods, or chance) in the unfolding of process of decision and action. It is perhaps Herodotus’ own emphasis on the difficulties in the accurate prediction of the actions of individuals which explains in part why he and not the universalising history of Thucydides, is Apollonius’ historiographical modello-codice. 

See Frede :  who draws attention to Ph. b–, , a–.

 

Telling Stories

Introduction We have so far examined both how Apollonius exploits general features of the historiographical mode shared by a number of historians and more particularly how he adapts various aspects of Herodotus’ historiographical manner and method; it is also important to focus attention on the various narratives themselves within the Histories and how they are engaged with by the Argonautica. There are several important examples of specific logoi, narratives or locations in Herodotus forming significant reference points for the readers of the epic. These are instances of sections from the text of Herodotus forming a ‘modello-esemplare’ for particular parts of the Argonautica, in which a given section forms the model (or example) on which the Apollonian passage is based. Such instances reinforce for the readers of the poem the importance of the broader intertextual relationship between Apollonius’ epic and Herodotus (as both historiographical modello-codice and the modello-esemplare for particular passages), and so lead the readers to expect and look for further examples of interaction with Herodotus (both in terms of specific passages and as a wider reference point as a representative of a type of discourse). Accordingly in this chapter I shall examine particularly important examples of specific interactions with Herodotus and the patterns in the use of these examples which we can discern, especially the importance of Herodotus’ interest in the beginnings of his narrative of Greek/non-Greek conflict) at crucial narrative junctures in Apollonius, and the presence of significant Herodotean places, locations and episodes in the Argonautica. As in the previous chapter, the implications of the use of Herodotus in this way for reading the Argonautica as containing possible exemplars for Ptolemaic rulers or institutions will be explored. 

See pp. – above for the intertextual terminology and approach employed in this book.



Herodotean Beginnings



Herodotean Beginnings In book  of the Argonautica, when the Argonauts are fleeing with the golden fleece before a vast host of Colchians (.–), themselves impelled by their fear of what Aietes has vowed to do to them if they do not capture Medea (.–), they make landfall on Medea’s orders, so that she can propitiate Hecate (.–). As if to mark the crucial stage of the epic we have reached, the narrator advertises that this is where Jason and the others will discover the way back home, equivalent to the meeting with Phineus in book , whom the narrator tells us is in the minds of the Argonauts themselves: αὐτίκα δ’ Αἰσονίδης ἐμνήσατο, σὺν δὲ καὶ ὧλλοι ἥρωες, Φινῆος, ὃ δὴ πλόον ἄλλον ἔειπεν ἐξ Αἴης ἔσσεσθαι· ἀνώιστος δ’ ἐτέτυκτο πᾶσιν ὁμῶς.

(A.R. . )

At once the son of Aeson, and the other heroes with him, remembered Phineus, who had said that the journey from Aea would be different. But it was still unknown to all alike.

The speech which Argos then gives, in which he claims that the Argonauts can use the Ister (or Danube) to return home, is rich in Herodotean associations, not least in its development of Herodotus’ version of the story of the legendary Egyptian pharaoh Sesostris (Hdt. .–), though he is unnamed by Argos. And the Herodotean passages evoked (which are more than simply the story of Sesostris) are themselves to be found at key stages of the narrative in the Histories. For example, the Argonauts have put in (in a distinctive pattern we shall explore more fully in the next section) in a significant Herodotean location: Παφλαγόνων ἀκτῇσι, πάροιθ’ Ἅλυος ποταμοῖο (‘the shores of the Paphlagonians, at the mouth of the river Halys’, A.R. .). Rivers often mark important boundaries in Herodotus, and the Halys, running north into the southern side of the Black Sea, is especially significant, since it marked the boundary between the Lydian and Persian empires (Hdt. ..–), and as such  



See Mooney : , Livrea : –, Vian : , Hunter : , . Cf. Murray : , n. , who suggests Hecataeus of Abdera is the inspiration for Argos’ speech, including the allusion to Sesostris and see p. , n.  below. Nevertheless, the similarities to Herodotus are pervasive and extensive, as I argue here (see also Dufner : –, who points out the close debt to Herodotus). On Hecataeus see also Stephens : – and pp. – above. See further pp. – below.



Telling Stories

plays an important role in the history of the hostility between East and West. It is by crossing the Halys that Croesus begins his fateful invasion of the Persian empire, which is the act which sets in motion the chain of events which leads to the conflict between the Greeks and the Persians: καὶ δὴ καὶ ἀπικομένου χρησμοῦ κιβδήλου, ἐλπίσας πρὸς ἑωυτοῦ τὸν χρησμὸν εἶναι, ἐστρατεύετο ἐς τὴν Περσέων μοῖραν. ὡς δὲ ἀπίκετο ἐπὶ τὸν Ἅλυν ποταμὸν ὁ Κροῖσος, τὸ ἐνθεῦτεν, ὡς μὲν ἐγὼ λέγω, κατὰ τὰς ἐούσας γεφύρας διεβίβασε τὸν στρατόν, ὡς δὲ ὁ πολλὸς λόγος Ἑλλήνων, Θαλῆς οἱ ὁ Μιλήσιος διεβίβασε. (Hdt. .. ) When the misleading oracle had come, thinking it was favourable to him, he invaded Persian territory. When Croesus arrived at the river Halys, he then got his army across using (as I think) existing bridges, though the popular account of the Greeks is that Thales of Miletus got the army across for him.

The ‘popular account’ among the Greeks that Croesus crossed the Halys through a new fording of it engineered by Thales would underline the significance of the Halys still further, by making this crossing even more closely parallel to the invasions of Darius and Xerxes, which also involve crossing significant water boundaries, as we shall see. In any case, while delivering his speech at one fateful Herodotean river, Argos then describes an alternative return home for the Argonauts by means of another important Herodotean river, the Ister: ἔστι δέ τις ποταμός, ὕπατον κέρας Ὠκεανοῖο, εὐρύς τε προβαθής τε καὶ ὁλκάδι νηὶ περῆσαι· Ἴστρον μιν καλέοντες ἑκὰς διετεκμήραντο· ὃς δ’ ἤτοι τείως μὲν ἀπείρονα τέμνετ’ ἄρουραν εἷς οἶος, πηγαὶ γὰρ ὑπὲρ πνοιῆς βορέαο Ῥιπαίοις ἐν ὄρεσσιν ἀπόπροθι μορμύρουσιν· ἀλλ’ ὁπότ’ ἂν Θρῃκῶν Σκυθέων τ’ ἐπιβήσεται οὔρους, ἔνθα διχῇ, τὸ μὲν ἔνθα μετ’ ἠοίην ἅλα βάλλει τῇδ’ ὕδωρ, τὸ δ’ ὄπισθε βαθὺν διὰ κόλπον ἵησιν σχιζόμενος πόντου Τρινακρίου εἰσανέχοντα, 





It is Croesus, of course, who is the first non-Greek Herodotus claims to know first committed wrongs against the Greeks (Hdt. ..), by incorporating the Greeks of western Asia Minor into his empire (Hdt. .). See pp. – above. The Ister into Scythia in the case of Darius and the Hellespont in the case of Xerxes. On the importance of boundaries (and crossing them) in Herodotus see Immerwahr : –, : , –, , Lateiner : –. On Croesus and the Croesus logos as paradigmatic see e.g. Immerwahr : –, –, Raaflaub : –, Dewald : –. Adopting the variant ἐπιβήσεται with Hunter : , .



Herodotean Beginnings γαίῃ ὃς ὑμετέρῃ παρακέκλιται, εἰ ἐτεὸν δή ὑμετέρης γαίης Ἀχελώιος ἐξανίησιν.

(A.R. . )

There is a river, the highest branch of Ocean, broad and deep enough for navigation by a merchant ship. Calling it the Ister they have mapped it out a long way. For some time it cuts boundless fields as but one river, since its sources roar beyond the blowing of the north wind far off in the Rhipaean mountains, but when it enters the borders of the Thracians and Scythians it divides in two: one stream throws its water here into the eastern sea, and behind it the other stream flows through the deep gulf which juts out from the Trinacrian sea which borders your land, if truly the Achelous flows forth from your land.

The Ister is another important river boundary in Herodotus, closely linked to another important section of the narrative of the Histories: in Herodotus the Ister often represents the Scythians (with whom Argos above also connects the river), being the ‘first of the rivers in Scythia’ (εἷς μὲν δὴ τῶν ποταμῶν τοῖσι Σκύθῃσι ἐστὶ ὁ Ἴστρος, Hdt. ..) and the boundary of Scythian territory (Hdt. ..). In order to invade Scythia Darius has to build a bridge (Hdt. .) over the Ister, a bridge guarded by Ionian Greeks, on which the survival of the Persian king and his army depends (Hdt. ..–, –). Argos knows of the course of the Ister because it has been mapped by the Colchians (A.R. .), who have also been able to rely on geographical knowledge preserved in writing from their ancestors, part of the army of Sesostris: οἳ δή τοι γραπτῦς πατέρων ἕθεν εἰρύονται, κύρβιας οἷς ἔνι πᾶσαι ὁδοὶ καὶ πείρατ’ ἔασιν ὑγρῆς τε τραφερῆς τε πέριξ ἐπινισομένοισιν.

(A.R. . )



 



Herodotus makes regular reference to the Ister, in particular to compare it with the Egyptian Nile (e.g. Hdt. .–, .), which Argos also mentions (A.R. .). See Hunter : . The Ister forms the border between Scythia and Thrace in Herodotus: see Vian : . Reading ἀπὸ Ἴστρου εὐθὺς ἤδη ἄρχαι ἡ Σκυθίη [ἐστί] (‘Scythia begins immediately from the Ister’) with Powell at Hdt. ... As the Scythians say to the Ionians guarding the bridge, its destruction and the trap into which the Persians would then fall would result in their annihilation: “ἄνδρες Ἴωνες, αἵ τε ἡμέραι ὑμῖν τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ διοίχηνται καὶ οὐ ποιέετε δίκαια ἔτι παραμένοντες. ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ πρότερον δειμαίνοντες ἐμένετε, νῦν λύσαντες τὸν πόρον τὴν ταχίστην ἄπιτε χαίροντες ἐλεύθεροι, θεοῖσί τε καὶ Σκύθῃσι εἰδότες χάριν. τὸν δὲ πρότερον ἐόντα ὑμέων δεσπότην ἡμεῖς παραστησόμεθα οὕτως ὥστε ἐπὶ μηδαμοὺς ἔτι ἀνθρώπους αὐτὸν στρατεύσασθαι.” (‘Men of Ionia, your sixty days have passed and you do not do right by remaining. But since before you remained out of fear, now undo the bridge and go straightaway happy and free, thanks to the gods and the Scythians. And your former master we will deal with him in such a way that he will never lead an army against anyone’, Hdt. ..–). On Argos as a researcher, see Fränkel : –, Dufner :  and p. , n.  above.



Telling Stories

In fact they preserve the writings of their fathers, pillars on which are shown all the ways and edges of the sea and the land for those who are to travel round them.

Interpretation of the meaning of these ‘writings’ is controversial, but pillars which contain not only all the ὁδοί (‘ways’, ‘paths’) but also the πείρατα (‘edges’, ‘boundaries’) of the sea and land most naturally suggests a visual map. The presence of limits or boundaries alongside paths implies a cartographic rather than simply a ‘hodological’ conception of geographical space, that is to say one which conceives of it as presentable in the form of the map of an area and not simply as a series of waypoints on a journey. This inscribed map thus in turn recalls, as Ray Clare has suggested, another important stage of Herodotus’ narrative of the origins of the Persian Wars, the map of Aristagoras: χάλκεον πίνακα ἐν τῷ γῆς ἁπάσης περίοδος ἐνετέτμητο καὶ θάλασσά τε πᾶσα καὶ ποταμοὶ πάντες (‘a bronze board on which were engraved a map of the whole earth and all the sea and every river’, Hdt. ..). It is by means of this map that Aristagoras attempts to persuade the Spartans to support his revolt against the Persians; he actively uses the map during his speech, pointing at it as he speaks: δεικνὺς δὲ ἔλεγε ταῦτα ἐς τῆς γῆς τὴν περίοδον, τὴν ἐφέρετο ἐν τῷ πίνακι ἐντετμημένην. “Λυδῶν δέ”, ἔφη λέγων ὁ Ἀρισταγόρης, “οἵδε ἔχονται Φρύγες οἱ πρὸς τὴν ἠῶ, πολυπροβατώτατοί τε ἐόντες πάντων τῶν ἐγὼ οἶδα καὶ πολυκαρπότατοι.” (Hdt. ..) He said these things gesturing at the map of the earth, which he had brought engraved on the board. ‘And here, to the east of the Lydians are the Phrygians’, said Aristagoras, ‘who are richer in flocks than any other people known to me, and richer in crops.’

It is not enough, of course, to persuade the Spartans once they hear how long it will take them to get to Susa (Hdt. .), but Aristagoras does succeed in convincing the Athenians using the same speech he had used to Cleomenes in Sparta (ἐπελθὼν δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν δῆμον ὁ Ἀρισταγόρης ταὐτὰ    



See Livrea : –, Hunter : . See Vian :  n. , Clare : –, Thalmann :  with n. . On these concepts, especially in connection with Herodotus’ account of Aristagoras’ map, see Purves : –. On the complex and varied presentation of space in the Argonautica, see Thalmann , who notes (–) the ‘cartographic’ character of the panoramic view of the world the gods can enjoy (e.g. Eros at A.R. .–) and the panoptic perspective sometimes gained by the Argonauts (e.g. when they climb Mount Dindymum at A.R. .–). Clare : –. See also Pearson : .

Herodotean Beginnings



ἔλεγε τὰ καὶ ἐν τῇ Σπάρτῃ περὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ Ἀσίῃ καὶ τοῦ πολέμου τοῦ Περσικοῦ, ‘Aristagoras went before the people and said the same things he had in Sparta about the good things in Asia and about Persian warfare’, Hdt. ..). Given the prominent use Aristagoras makes of the map in the earlier version of the same speech, presumably he also made use of it in convincing the Athenians to aid him. The help they give him by sending twenty ships to help the Ionians is flagged by Herodotus as another crucial moment in the bringing together of Greeks and Persians in war: αὗται δὲ αἱ νέες ἀρχὴ κακῶν ἐγένοντο Ἕλλησί τε καὶ βαρβάροισι (‘[T]hese ships were the beginning of the evils for Greeks and barbarians alike’, Hdt. ..). We have already seen in Chapter  that Herodotus is intensely interested in the beginnings of the war between Greeks and nonGreeks (its αἰτίη, Hdt. . prol.), one of which he identifies as Croesus (Hdt. ..). But the ships the Athenians send are also a key Herodotean beginning, and it is striking that Apollonius picks up on these multiple Herodotean beginnings in the Argonautica in Argos’ speech at the Halys river, which recalls both Croesus’ fateful invasion of the Persian empire and the map of Aristagoras which plays a memorable role in involving the mainland Greeks in the Ionian revolt. Nor is this the only Herodotean beginning with which Apollonius engages in his epic, as we shall see if we turn back to Apollonius’ own beginning (marked itself of course, by the word ‘beginning’, as if to flag the importance of narrative beginnings in the epic). The first four lines of the Argonautica are thick with words and phrases which gesture to other texts: the Iliad (κλέα φωτῶν, v. ), the Homeric Hymns (Ἀρχόμενος, v.; μνήσομαι, v. ), the Medea and Pindar’s Pythian  (the Dark Rocks, Pelias, the Argo, vv. –). But, as we have seen above, there is much which recalls the opening sections of Herodotus. The Argonautica begins with a strong first-person voice proclaiming that he will recall the kleos of men of the past, without a mention of the Muses; Herodotus begins with a  

  



See p.  above. The importance of this beginning is reinforced by the echo in the ships as ἀρχὴ κακῶν of the Persian–Greek conflict of Paris as the beginning of strife in the Iliad (ἀρχεκάκους, Il. .–, νεῖκεος ἀρχή, Il. .–). On the Iliadic echo see e.g. Munson :  n. , Hornblower : . See e.g. Goldhill : –, Clare : –, Thalmann : . Cf. the κλέα ἀνδρῶν sung by Achilles at Il. .. Mooney  ad loc. points out we also find this phrase at h.Hom. .  (its close), where we also find ἀρχόμενος. On these intertexts see (e.g.) Goldhill : –, Clauss : –, Hunter : –, Morrison : –. The differences and distortions between the Argonautica and its intertexts are, of course, as important as the similarities. See pp. –.



Telling Stories

declaration that what follows is the presentation of his own investigations, meant to prevent ‘what has happened among men’ from becoming ἐξίτηλα (‘wiped out’) by time and to ensure the ἔργα (‘deeds’) do not lose their kleos (ἀκλεᾶ γένηται). Most importantly from our perspective here, the beginning of the narrative in the epic itself recalls Herodotean beginnings. Apollonius begins with an address to Apollo (Φοῖβε, v. ), but Apollo is not (or not only) the inspiration of the story but its narrative ‘startingpoint’, as the subsequent lines make clear: Τοίην γὰρ Πελίης φάτιν ἔκλυεν, ὥς μιν ὀπίσσω μοῖρα μένει στυγερή, τοῦδ’ ἀνέρος, ὅν τιν’ ἴδοιτο δημόθεν οἰοπέδιλον, ὑπ’ ἐννεσίῃσι δαμῆναι.

(A.R. . )

Such was the oracle Pelias heard, that a harsh fate awaited him in the future, to be overcome by the designs of the man he would see coming from the people with a single sandal.

Apollonius begins his epic narrative with Apollo because it is Apollo’s oracle which sets its action in motion. An interest in where a story begins is natural enough in any narrative (one thinks of the question to the Muse at Iliad . and the wider context of the Διὸς βουλή). But it is precisely the differences from traditional epic ways of explaining how and where stories start which recall historiography (and Herodotus in particular). Apollonius does not begin with a god in action prompting the narrative (contrast the Apollo of the Iliad who is ‘angry’ (χολωθείς, .) with Agamemnon and ‘stirred up evil pestilence in the army’ (νοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὦρσε κακήν, .): the Argonautic Apollo starts things off with a very Herodotean device for motivating a narrative, an oracle.





 



Fränkel :  suggests that the role of Apollo as inspirer is implicit in the opening address, though unstated. Nevertheless, the effect is different from that produced by an explicit invocation, such as that to the Muse at the beginning of each Homeric epic. See Clare : – (‘to begin from Apollo in terms of poetic inspiration is also to begin from Apollo in terms of plot’, p. ). Cf. Fränkel : –, who cites the beginning of the Iliad as a parallel for the Argonautica’s opening with Apollo. See p.  above. Pindar’s Argonautica, Pythian , also begins with an oracle, the prophecy that Battos would found Cyrene (vv. –), but that is immediately connected with the mythic prediction by Medea to the Argonauts on Lemnos (καὶ τὸ Μηδείας ἔπος ἀγκομίσαι | ἑβδόμᾳ καὶ σὺν δεκάτᾳ γενεᾷ Θήραιον, vv. –): this is part of the creation of a transcendental link between mythic past and celebratory present which is very different from the effect of the oracles at the beginning of either Apollonius’ epic or Herodotus. See pp. – above. See p. , n. ,  on the marginalisation of the gods at the beginning of Herodotus and Apollonius. On the prominence of oracles in Herodotus and their ‘essentially narrative role’ see

Herodotean Beginnings



Herodotean oracles at the beginnings of narratives include the oracle which enables the Lydian Heraclidae to gain the kingdom of Lydia (ἔσχον τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐκ θεοπροπίου, ‘[T]hey took the kingdom by means of an oracle’, Hdt. ..), and the matching oracle which enables Gyges and the Mermnadae to succeed the Heraclidae (Hdt. ..–). It is this latter favourable pronouncement from Delphi which allows Gyges to overcome those Lydians opposed to his rule after the killing of the Heraclid Candaules. But the very same oracle which secured his position as king also predicts the vengeance to come upon the Mermnadae from the Heraclidae in the fourth generation (not counting inclusively) after Gyges (εἶπε ἡ Πυθίη, ‘the Pythian priestess declared’, Hdt. ..), as the Pythia herself later explains after the fall of Croesus, who is Gyges’ unlucky descendant (Hdt. ..). Croesus himself, of course, tests and then consults oracles at the beginning of his war against the Persians (Hdt. ., ., ), in order to guarantee a reliable response, though he famously misunderstands the pronouncement that ‘if he were to march against the Persians he would destroy a great empire’ (ἢν στρατεύηται ἐπὶ Πέρσας, μεγάλην ἀρχὴν μιν καταλύσειν, Hdt. ..), and the later statement from the Pythia that he should beware of the day a mule should lead the Persians (Hdt. ..), this mule being Cyrus, ‘son of two parents not from the same people, the mother nobler and the father baser’ (ἐκ γὰρ δυῶν οὐκ ὁμοεθνέων ἐγεγόνεε, μητρὸς ἀμείνονος, πατρὸς δὲ ὑποδεεστέρου, Hdt. ..). Croesus is for Herodotus, as we have already seen, himself the first of the ‘beginnings’ (cf. πρῶτον ὑπάρξαντα, Hdt. ..) of the wars between the Greeks and the barbarians the reason for which Herodotus is investigating in the Histories. Indeed, the whole Herodotean Croesus logos is of particular interest to Apollonius, perhaps because of its prominence at the beginning of book  and its wider programmatic and structural importance within the Histories. Croesus is also echoed, for example, in the list of peoples Lycus tells the visiting Argonauts Heracles conquered when on an expedition to Asia (A.R. .–): the Mysians, Mygdones, Bithynians and Paphlagonians all feature among the peoples





Calame : –. Oracles have a substantially less prominent role at the beginning of Thucydides or Xenophon’s Anabasis or Hellenica. ἔσχε δὲ τὴν βασιληίην καὶ ἐκρατύνθη ἐκ τοῦ ἐν Δελφοῖσι χρηστηρίου . . . ἢν μὲν τὸ χρηστήριον ἀνέλῃ μιν βασιλέα εἶναι Λυδῶν, τὸν δὲ βασιλεύειν, ἢν δὲ μή, ἀποδοῦναι ὀπίσω ἐς Ἡρακλείδας τὴν ἀρχήν, ‘So he got hold of the sovereign power and was confirmed in it by the Delphic oracle . . . if the oracle should pronounce him king of the Lydians, then he would reign, but if not, then he would return the kingship to the Heraclidae’ (Hdt. ..).  See pp. – above. See n.  above.



Telling Stories

conquered by Croesus west of the Halys (at Hdt. .), who also include the Mariandynians, the people of Lycus himself. Both Herodotean and Apollonian passages come at striking points in the respective texts: just before the arrival of Solon at Sardis in Herodotus (another of the most famous episodes in the Histories) and just before the deaths of Idmon and Tiphys in the Argonautica, one of the lowest points on the journey out to Colchis. Here too we see another instance of the pattern of making use of aspects of the Histories important to its narrative or structure to form a significant element at a crucial point in the Argonautica.

Herodotean Places As we have seen above, there is another clear pattern in the employment of Herodotean passages as example-models in the use in the Argonautica (at significant points in its structure) of important Herodotean locations. Several places, for example, associated with the expedition of Xerxes in Herodotus are also used in Apollonius, such as in the Catalogue of Argonauts at the beginning of the epic. Here Apollonius underlines the power of the Argonaut Orpheus by mentioning the oaks he led to Thracian Zone (A.R. .–), where they still stand: Zone is also the first place in Europe at which Xerxes lands in Herodotus (Hdt. .). Similarly the Persians, after the storm which afflicts their fleet before the crucial battle of Artemisium, put in at Aphetae in Magnesia (Hdt. ..), which is the same place from which the Argonautic expedition sets off in earnest (A.R. .–). Lemnos Before Jason meets Medea in Colchis, he first has a romantic attachment to Hypsipyle on Lemnos, the first extended episode on the Argo’s voyage treated by Apollonius. The Argonauts as a whole (with the notable exception of Heracles) are able to enjoy erotic relationships with the Lemnian women because the women have previously killed the men of the island, because they in turn had turned their attentions to Thracian women they had brought back from pillaging raids on the mainland, as the Apollonian 



In addition to the examples discussed in this section, see also the importance of Cyzicus, the second extended episode on the Argonauts’ outward journey and a prominent location for contact between Greeks and non-Greeks in both Herodotus (Hdt. .) and Apollonius (A.R. .–). See pp. – below for a detailed treatment of the interaction there.  See further pp. – above. See further pp. – below.



Herodotean Places

narrator tells us at A.R. .–. When Hypsipyle comes to tell the same tale she lies about the eventual fate of the men and boys, whom she claims to be living in Thrace with their concubines (A.R. .–), but describes the situation of the rejected Lemnian women in affecting detail: ἀτιμάζοντο δὲ τέκνα γνήσι’ ἐνὶ μεγάροις, σκοτίη δ’ ἀνέτελλε γενέθλη· αὔτως δ’ ἀδμῆτές τε κόραι, χῆραί τ’ ἐπὶ τῇσιν μητέρες ἂμ πτολίεθρον ἀτημελέες ἀλάληντο. οὐδὲ πατὴρ ὀλίγον περ ἑῆς ἀλέγιζε θυγατρός, εἰ καὶ ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσι δαϊζομένην ὁρόῳτο μητρυιῆς ὑπὸ χερσὶν ἀτασθάλου· οὐδ’ ἀπὸ μητρὸς λώβην, ὡς τὸ πάροιθεν, ἀεικέα παῖδες ἄμυνον, οὐδὲ κασιγνήτοισι κασιγνήτη μέλε θυμῷ. ἀλλ’ οἶαι κοῦραι ληίτιδες ἔν τε δόμοισιν ἔν τε χοροῖς ἀγορῇ τε καὶ εἰλαπίνῃσι μέλοντο· (A.R. . )

Legitimate children were dishonoured in their homes, and a bastard race was rising. In this way unmarried girls and also widowed mothers wandered the city uncared for. Nor did father care at all for daughter, even if he saw her being killed before his eyes at the hands of her wicked stepmother. Nor did sons as in earlier times ward off shameful insults from mothers, nor did sister matter in the hearts of brothers. All that mattered in homes, choruses, marketplace, banquets were the captive girls.

This description closely echoes part of Herodotus’ characterisation of the very same place, Lemnos, at the end of book , in which he details a different reason for the Greek naming of savage deeds as ‘Lemnian’, in addition to the killing of the Lemnian men by their women which he also mentions (Hdt. ..). This is the killing on Lemnos of Athenian boys and their mothers (rather than their fathers) by Pelasgians, who like the Lemnian men in Hypsipyle’s account, gain their paramours through raiding (cf. ληιάδεσσι δορικτήταις παρίαυον, ‘they slept beside the spearwon captives’, A.R. .): ἐνθεῦτεν δὲ ἁρπάσαντες τουτέων πολλὰς οἴχοντο ἀποπλέοντες, καί σφεας ἐς Λῆμνον ἀγαγόντες παλλακὰς εἶχον (‘seizing many of these women they sailed off and bringing them to Lemnos kept them as concubines’, Hdt. ..). These women pass on 



δὴ γὰρ κουριδίας μὲν ἀπηνήναντο γυναῖκας | ἀνέρες ἐχθήραντες, ἔχον δ’ ἐπὶ ληιάδεσσιν | τρηχὺν ἔρον, ἃς αὐτοὶ ἀγίνεον ἀντιπέρηθεν | Θρηικίην δῃοῦντες (‘For the men in their hatred rejected their wedded wives, and held a harsh desire for the captive women whom they themselves had brought back from the opposite shore when raiding in Thrace’). On Apollonius’ use of earlier versions of the story of the killing by the Lemnian women, see Vian : –.



Telling Stories

Attic culture and language to their sons, who do not mix with the (legitimate) Pelasgian children and come to dominate them (οἱ δὲ οὔτε συμμίσγεσθαι τοῖσι ἐκ τῶν Πελασγίδων γυναικῶν παισὶ ἤθελον, εἴ τε τύπτοιτό τις αὐτῶν ὑπ' ἐκείνων τινός, ἐβοήθεόν τε πάντες καὶ ἐτιμώρεον ἀλλήλοισι· καὶ δὴ καὶ ἄρχειν τε τῶν παίδων οἱ παῖδες ἐδικαίευν καὶ πολλῷ ἐπεκράτεον, ‘[T]hey would not mix with the children of the Pelasgian women, and if one was struck by one of the others, all coming to his aid would help one another. Moreover the boys claimed to rule over the children and were stronger by far’, Hdt. ..). In Hypsipyle’s description, the treatment of the legitimate children of the Lemnian women recalls the domination of the legitimate children on Lemnos in Herodotus, but the detail of the lack of family-feeling and protection for women and girls in Apollonius (A.R. .–) is an inversion of the solidarity of the sons of the Athenian women in Herodotus, who do protect one another and do not let insults pass. This behaviour, however, leads to Pelasgian male worries about their own future prospects, given the treatment of their legitimate children by their wives: εἰ δὴ διαγινώσκοιεν σφίσι τε βοηθέειν οἱ παῖδες πρὸς τῶν κουριδιέων γυναικῶν τοὺς παῖδας καὶ τούτων αὐτίκα ἄρχειν πειρῴατο, τί δὴ ἀνδρωθέντες δῆθεν ποιήσουσι (‘[I]f the boys have already decided to help one another against the children of their wedded wives and are already trying to dominate them, what would they do when they have become men?’, Hdt. ..). Accordingly they resolve to kill the sons and their mothers, out of fear of future retribution, whereas in the Argonautica we learn from the primary narrator that the Lemnian women killed the fathers and their sons for the same reason: οὐκ οἶον σὺν τῇσιν ἑοὺς ἔρραισαν ἀκοίτας ἀμφ’ εὐνῇ, πᾶν δ’ ἄρσεν ὁμοῦ γένος, ὥς κεν ὀπίσσω μή τινα λευγαλέοιο φόνου τίσειαν ἀμοιβήν.

(A.R. . )

Not only did they destroy their husbands and the women for their love making but also all the males, so that in the future they would not pay back any retribution for the baneful slaughter.

The killing of children by both the Argonautic Lemnian women and the later Pelasgian men of course anticipates Medea’s killing of her own children by as depicted by Euripides in his Medea. But it also undermines, to some extent, the narrator’s confident statement that the erotic union of the Argonauts and the Lemnian women marks the end of Lemnos’ troubles: 

See e.g. Hunter : –, DeForest : –.



Herodotean Places Κύπρις γὰρ ἐπὶ γλυκὺν ἵμερον ὦρσεν Ἡφαίστοιο χάριν πολυμήτιος, ὄφρα κεν αὖτις ναίηται μετόπισθεν ἀκήρατος ἀνδράσι Λῆμνος. (A.R. . )

because Cypris stirred up sweet desire as a favour to resourceful Hephaestus, in order that once more Lemnos should be dwelt in by men and be unharmed thereafter.

Lemnos, the Herodotean intertext reminds us, has harm to come to it yet, indeed it will experience events which replay (and invert) the actions of the Lemnian women condemned by the Apollonian narrator. And the future of Lemnos and its descendants is of central importance in the Argonautica, since it is from Lemnos that Thera will be colonised by the offspring of the Argonauts and the Lemnian women at the close of the poem. It is also explicit in Herodotus that these Lemnian descendants of the Argonauts are in fact driven from Lemnos by the same Pelasgians who kill the Athenian mothers and sons (Hdt. .), further underlining the unstable future which in fact awaits Lemnos. Apollonius similarly acknowledges the troubled future of Lemnos at the end of the epic, when the descendants of Euphemus are ‘driven out’ (ἐξελαθέντες, A.R. .) of Lemnos to Sparta and thence to Thera by ‘Tyrrhenian men’ (ὑπ’ ἀνδράσι Τυρσηνοῖσιν, A.R. .), despite Cypris’ intentions that they should repopulate the island, which should thenceforth be unharmed. The narrator’s account of the foundation of Thera seems therefore to undermine the account he gives of the Argonautic visit to Lemnos and its consequences, further emphasising the great distance between the mythic past and the historic present and the difficulties in making connections between them, as well as the difficulties involved in the construction of an epic narrative. The echoes of Herodotus in Apollonius’ version of the Argonauts’ visit to Lemnos are further flagged for the readers of the epic by another clear Herodotean resemblance at the very beginning of the Lemnian episode. Apollonius describes the distance between Mount Athos, which casts its shadow on Lemnos, and the island as being ὅσσον ἐς ἔνδιόν κεν ἐύστολος ὁλκὰς ἀνύσσαι (‘as far as a well-equipped merchant ship goes until noon’, A.R. .), which recalls the words of the Pelasgians to the Athenians as   

On the details of the colonisation of Thera and the omission of Cyrene from the account in the Argonautica, see pp. – in Chapter . See Vian : , who notes that the Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians are equivalent at Thuc. ... On the destabilising of the connection between past and present in the aetia of the Argonautica, see pp. – above.



Telling Stories

to when they would be prepared to give up their land to them, after the murder of the Athenian women: “ἐπεὰν βορέῃ ἀνέμῳ αὐτημερὸν ἐξανύσῃ νηῦς ἐκ τῆς ὑμετέρης ἐς τὴν ἡμετέρην, τότε παραδώσομεν” (‘When a ship reaches our land in one day on the north wind from yours, then we will hand it over’, Hdt. ..). Miltiades, son of Cimon, manages to reach them from more nearby Athenian territory in the Chersonese and so gains control of Lemnos (Hdt. .), despite Lemnian male resistance, which is the reverse of the opportunity for gaining control of Lemnos freely offered by Lemnian women in the Argonautica, which Jason turns down (A.R. .–). This resemblance further underlines the degree and depth of the engagement with the details of the Herodotean text on which Apollonius is engaged in the Argonautica. Lake Tritonis Near the end of book  of the Argonautica, after the deaths of Canthus and Mopsus in Libya, the Argonauts are trapped in Lake Tritonis, unable to find a passage out into the sea (A.R. .–). It is only when Orpheus suggests offering ‘Apollo’s great tripod’ (Ἀπόλλωνος τρίποδα μέγαν, A.R. .) as a gift to the local gods that help comes to them: τοῖσιν δ’ αἰζηῷ ἐναλίγκιος ἀντεβόλησεν Τρίτων εὐρυβίης, γαίης δ’ ἀνὰ βῶλον ἀείρας ξείνι’ ἀριστήεσσι προΐσχετο, φώνησέν τε· (A.R. . )

Wide ruling Triton in the guise of a young man met them, and lifting up a clod of earth offered it as a guest gift to the heroes, and spoke.

This meeting with Triton is clearly modelled on the similar episode in Pindar’s own Argonautic poem, Pythian , in which Medea relates the







Measuring distance by reference to ships travelling is in itself reminiscent of historiography: cf. esp. Thuc. .., where the extent of the Odrysian empire is expressed by the distance a merchant ship can sail in four days. In the same passage Thucydides employs the Herodotean measure of the ἀνὴρ εὔζωνος: see pp. – above. Miltiades also seems like and unlike Jason earlier at Hdt. ., when he becomes entangled with the Parian woman Timo, who is ὑποζάκορον τῶν χθονίων θεῶν (‘under-priestess of the chthonian gods’, Hdt. ..), but her magical advice on how to take Paros is unsuccessful, in contrast to Medea’s in Apollonius, and results in Miltiades’ fatal injury. See Mooney : –, Livrea : –, Stephens : –, Hunter : . The Argonauts’ wider adventures, especially the meetings with the Libyan heroines and the Hesperides, develop in important ways the narrative of Menelaus’ adventures in Egypt in Odyssey : see Dufner : –.

Herodotean Places



meeting of some god, in the likeness of a man, who also claims (like Apollonius’ Triton) to be Poseidon’s son Eurypylus (A.R. .– ~ P. .), and offers a clod of earth which is received by Euphemus (πρόφρων δ’ ὑποέσχεθε βώλακι χεῖρας | Εὔφημος, ‘eagerly Euphemus stretched forth his hands for the clod’, A.R. .– ~ ἀλλ’ ἥρως ἐπ’ ἀκταῖσιν θορὼν | χειρί οἱ χεῖρ’ ἀντερείσαις δέξατο βώλακα δαιμονίαν, ‘the hero leaping onto the shore clasping the other’s hand with his hand he received the divine clod’, P. .–). The Pindaric meeting also takes place at Lake Tritonis (P. .–). But it is also clear that Apollonius is combining the Pindaric story of the clod of earth from the god with another story from Herodotus. Lake Tritonis is an important Herodotean location, marking a significant boundary in the ethnographic description of Libya, between the nomadic Libyans of the eastern part up to Egypt and those west of the lake (Hdt. .–). The tripod which the Argonauts offer in Apollonius is also Herodotean: the tripod is not found in Pindar, but does appear in the Herodotean version of the Argonauts trapped ‘in the shallows of Lake Tritonis’ (ἐν τοῖσι βράχεσι . . . λίμνης τῆς Τριτωνίδος, Hdt. ..): καί οἱ ἀπορέοντι τὴν ἐξαγωγὴν λόγος ἐστὶ φανῆναι Τρίτωνα καὶ κελεύειν τὸν Ἰήσονα ἑωυτῷ δοῦναι τὸν τρίποδα, φάμενόν σφι καὶ τὸν πόρον δέξειν καὶ ἀπήμονας ἀποστελέειν. πειθομένου δὲ τοῦ Ἰήσονος, οὕτω δὴ τόν τε διέκπλοον τῶν βραχέων δεικνύναι τὸν Τρίτωνά σφι καὶ τὸν τρίποδα θεῖναι ἐν τῷ ἑωυτοῦ ἱρῷ. (Hdt. .. ) And the story is that when he was at a loss as to the way out Triton appeared to him and told Jason to give him the tripod, saying that he would show them the channel and send them off unharmed. Jason obeyed and so Triton showed him the passage through the shallows and set up the tripod in his own shrine.

There is probably a close verbal echo of this Herodotean passage in Apollonius, if we prefer (with the majority of recent editors) the variant ἐξανάγει (‘leads out’) to ἐξανέχει (‘extends’) at A.R. ., in Euphemus’ request to Triton to aid the Argonauts in their ignorance as to the correct route out of Tritonis: οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν | πῇ πλόος ἐξανάγει Πελοπηίδα γαῖαν

  

τουτάκι δ᾿ οἰοπόλος δαίμων ἐπῆλθεν φαιδίμαν | ἀνδρὸς αἰδοίου πρόσοψιν θηκάμενος (‘Just then the lone god approached, having taken on the shining appearance of an honoured man’, P. .–). See in general on the mythic structure of the Pindaric version Calame : –, –. So Murray : , Livrea : . See further Delage : –.



Telling Stories

ἱκέσθαι (‘we do not know where a channel leads out to reach the land of Pelops’). The verb in Apollonius closely echoes the noun ἐξαγωγή (‘way out’) used in Herodotus of Jason’s ignorance as the channel out (οἱ ἀπορέοντι τὴν ἐξαγωγήν, ‘at a loss as to the way out’). Such an explicit marker of interaction with Herodotus should prompt readers to consider the implications of the intertext. It is worth noting the sequel to the gift of the tripod to Triton in Herodotus: Triton predicts that should a descendant of the Argonauts carry off the tripod, a hundred Greek cities would be founded around the lake (Hdt. ..), which leads the local Libyans (understandably enough) to hide the tripod. The tripod is thus closely connected in Herodotus with the notion of Greek settlement in Libya. In Apollonius, however, this detail is effaced, and when Triton receives the tripod (A.R. .–), he disappears into the lake with it almost immediately, only reappearing (in his true form) to push the Argo out to sea before diving back into the depths once more (A.R. .–). The recollection in the Argonautica of the Herodotean account alongside a change in the role of the tripod serves once more to remind the readers of the connection of the Argonautic visit to Libya with the foundationstory of Cyrene, but also to underline the breaking-off of that story in the epic, and the concentration instead on the island of Thera. Thera Later still in the epic, Euphemus has a peculiar dream (A.R. .–) in which he imagines that he suckled Triton’s gift, the ‘divine clod’ (δαιμονίη βῶλαξ, A.R. ., a phrase borrowed from Pindar, P. .), at his breast, but that a woman came from the clod, with whom he made love (to his dismay). The woman then comforted him with the knowledge that she was the nurse of his future children, not his daughter, and that she would ‘later emerge into the light of the sun, ready for your descendants’ (εἶμι δ’ ἐς αὐγὰς | ἠελίου μετόπισθε, τεοῖς νεπόδεσσιν ἑτοίμη, A.R. .–). This is a reference to Thera, as becomes clear after Euphemus recounts his dream to Jason, who predicts that an island will grow from the clod, where Euphemus’ descendants will dwell (A.R. .–). After Euphemus throws the clod in the sea, the primary narrator fills in the picture still further:  

See Fränkel  app. crit. ad loc. (noting the Herodotean model), Livrea : , Vian : , Hunter : , all of whom prefer ἐξανάγει.  See further pp. – above. Stephens :  n. .



Herodotean Places τῆς δ’ ἔκτοθι νῆσος ἀέρθη Καλλίστη, παίδων ἱερὴ τροφὸς Εὐφήμοιο· οἳ πρὶν μέν ποτε δὴ Σιντηίδα Λῆμνον ἔναιον Λήμνου τ’ ἐξελαθέντες ὑπ’ ἀνδράσι Τυρσηνοῖσι Σπάρτην εἰσαφίκανον ἐφέστιοι·

(A.R. . )

From that there arose an island, Calliste, holy nurse of the children of Euphemus, who before used to live on Sintian Lemnos but were driven out of Lemnos by Tyrrhenian men and came to Sparta to live.

This in turn develops the story of the foundation of Thera by Lemnians via Sparta, as found in Pindar: καὶ ἐν ἀλλοδαπαῖς σπέρμ’ ἀρούραις τουτάκις ὑμετέρας ἀκτῖνος ὄλβου δέξατο μοιρίδιον ἆμαρ ἢ νύκτες. τόθι γὰρ γένος Εὐφάμου φυτευθὲν λοιπὸν αἰεὶ τέλλετο· καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων μιχθέντες ἀνδρῶν ἤθεσιν ἔν ποτε Καλλίσταν ἀπῴκησαν χρόνῳ νᾶσον·

(P. . )

And at that time the fateful day or night received in the fields of others the seed of your gleam of prosperity. For there was the race of Euphemus planted, which has endured forever. And having shared the homes of Spartan men they settled on the island which was once Calliste.

But there are some striking and important differences from Pindar which underline the presence of Herodotus: in Pythian  the Battiad king of Cyrene (Arcesilas) is being addressed and his connection with Euphemus emphasised, while in Apollonius the focus, as we have seen in the first chapter, is rather on the figure of Theras, after whom Thera is named, and who is himself apostrophised at A.R. .– (if Fränkel’s and Wendel’s conjectures on the basis of the scholia are correct). Theras goes unmentioned in Pindar, while in Apollonius there is no connection made with the Battiad monarchy of Cyrene, itself a colony of Thera, on which the Pindaric account focuses. Theras, however, is prominent in the Herodotean account of the foundation of Thera, where he is also described as the ‘son of Autesion’ (Θήρας ὁ Αὐτεσίωνος, Hdt. ..; cf. Αὐτεσίωνος ἐὺς πάις, A.R. .), and instrumental in healing the rift between the Spartans and the Minyans (descendants of the Argonauts   

See, e.g., Livrea : –, Hunter : . Cf. also Pindar, P. .–.  See pp. – above. See Livrea : –, Hunter : –. See pp. – above.



Telling Stories

driven from Lemnos by the Pelasgians, Hdt. .) by allowing them to form part of his colonising expedition (Hdt. .–). Herodotus, like Apollonius (ἀμείψατο δ’ οὔνομα, Θήρα, | ἐκ σέθεν, A.R. .–), but unlike Pindar, also makes explicit the etymology of the new name of the island which was once Calliste: τῇ δὲ νήσῳ ἐπὶ τοῦ οἰκιστέω Θήρα ἡ ἐπωνυμίη ἐγένετο (‘the name Thera was given to the island after its founder’, Hdt. ..); τῇ νῦν Θήρῃ καλεομένη νήσῳ, πρότερον δὲ Καλλίστῃ (‘now called Thera, but previously Calliste’, Hdt. ..). Finally, it is worth noting that in Herodotus there is a strong break between the part of the account devoted to the colonisation of Thera (Hdt. .–) and that concentrating on the foundation of Cyrene (Hdt. .–), marked by the Herodotean narrator’s statement that ‘up to now the Spartans and Therans say the same things, but from this point on only the Therans tell what happened’ (μέχρι μέν νυν τούτου τοῦ λόγου Λακεδαιμόνιοι Θηραίοισι κατὰ ταὐτὰ λέγουσι, τὸ δὲ ἀπὸ τούτου μοῦνοι Θηραῖοι ὧδε γενέσθαι λέγουσι, Hdt. ..). The pointed halting at Thera (rather than Cyrene) of the future consequences of the Argonautic sojourn on Lemnos itself reflects a fact about the structure of one of Apollonius’ example-models, the Herodotean treatment of the foundation-stories of Thera and Cyrene. Thessaly The pattern of engagement with Herodotean locations at crucial stages of the Argonautic narrative continues in the description of Thessaly Jason gives to Medea in book , a passage which also hints at the broader presence of Herodotus’ Persians in the epic (which we shall explore more fully in the next chapter). Jason is responding to Medea’s request to tell her about his home which she has just made in her famous ‘remember me’ speech (A.R. .–). Just before Jason’s description of Thessaly, we are told that ‘deadly love’ (οὖλος ἔρως, A.R. .) was stealing over him. This is a Jason falling for Medea and at the end of this speech he will raise the possibility of marriage (A.R. .–), which he will promise in his next one (A.R. .–):   

See Calame :  on the narrator’s ‘strong enunciative intervention’ here. See pp. – below. Cf. μνώεο . . . | οὔνομα Μηδείης, ‘remember the name of Medea’, A.R. .–, with obvious echoes of Hypsipyle earlier in the poem (A.R. .–) as well as Nausicaa (Od. .–). See in general on the similarities between Hypsipyle and Medea Hunter : –.

Herodotean Places



εἰ δέ τοι ἡμετέρην ἐξίδμεναι εὔαδε πάτρην, ἐξερέω· μάλα γάρ με καὶ αὐτὸν θυμὸς ἀνώγει. ἔστι τις αἰπεινοῖσι περίδρομος οὔρεσι γαῖα, πάμπαν ἐύρρηνός τε καὶ εὔβοτος, ἔνθα Προμηθεὺς Ἰαπετιονίδης ἀγαθὸν τέκε Δευκαλίωνα, ὃς πρῶτος ποίησε πόλεις καὶ ἐδείματο νηοὺς ἀθανάτοις, πρῶτος δὲ καὶ ἀνθρώπων βασίλευσεν. Αἱμονίην δὴ τήν γε περικτίονες καλέουσιν. ἐν δ’ αὐτῇ Ἰαωλκός, ἐμὴ πόλις, ἐν δὲ καὶ ἄλλαι πολλαὶ ναιετάουσιν, ἵν’ οὐδέ περ οὔνομ’ ἀκοῦσαι Αἰαίης νήσου· Μινύην γε μὲν ὁρμηθέντα, Αἰολίδην Μινύην ἔνθεν φάτις Ὀρχομενοῖο δή ποτε Καδμείοισιν ὁμούριον ἄστυ πολίσσαι.

(A.R. . )

If you want to find out about my country I will speak of it, since my heart greatly urges me to also. There is a land surrounded by steep mountains, rich in sheep and pasture, where Prometheus, son of Iapetus, fathered good Deucalion, who first made cities and built temples to the immortals, and was also first to be king over men. Those who live around it called Haemonia. In it there is Iolcus, my city, and also many others, where not even the name of the isle of Aeaea is heard. There is a story that once Minyas set out thence, Minyas son of Aeolus, and established the city of Orchomenus neighbouring the Cadmeians.

Thessaly as an αἰπεινοῖσι περίδρομος οὔρεσι γαῖα (‘land surrounded by steep mountains’) resembles the description of Thessaly in similar terms in Herodotus: τὴν δὲ Θεσσαλίην λόγος ἐστὶ τὸ παλαιὸν εἶναι λίμνην, ὥστε γε συγκεκληιμένην πάντοθεν ὑπερμήκεσι ὄρεσι (‘The story is that Thessaly was in ancient times a lake, shut in all around by very high mountains’, Hdt. ..). Herodotus explains that the rivers of Thessaly, which he enumerates, now meet on its plain and gathering into a single stream, the Peneius, flow into the sea ‘through a narrow ravine’ (δι’ ἑνὸς αὐλῶνος καὶ τούτου στεινοῦ, Hdt. ..), but there is a story that once this ravine did not exist, hence turning Thessaly into a lake (Hdt. ..). It may well be that Apollonius is looking also to the Herodotean description of Thessaly’s rivers since some MSS of the Argonautica read ἐύρρειτος (‘fair-flowing’, ‘well-watered’) for ἐύρρηνος (‘rich in sheep’) at A.R. .. Some Apollonian readers (whose text may have contained ἐύρρειτος) do appear to have thought of Herodotus’ Thessalian rivers: the   

See Hunter : –. Cf. also τὸ μέσον δὲ τούτων τῶν λεχθέντων ὀρέων ἡ Θεσσαλίη ἐστὶ ἐοῦσα κοίλη (‘Thessaly is a hollow in the middle of these aforementioned mountains’, Hdt. ..). See Vian :  app. crit., Hunter : .



Telling Stories

scholiast on A.R. ., after citing Herodotus for the description of Thessaly ringed by mountains, closely paraphrases Herodotus’ account of the rivers at Hdt. ... The description in Herodotus comes on Xerxes’ arrival in Thessaly and helps in part to explain the medising of the Thessalians: it is because of the ease by which Thessaly might once again be turned into a lake by means of a single dam that Xerxes calls the Thessalians wise for having submitted to him (Hdt. ..). This strongly recalls the earlier description in Herodotus of Persian royal control of water and landscape as an expression of political power from book  (Hdt. ..–): ἔστι δὲ πεδίον ἐν τῇ Ἀσίῃ περικεκληιμένον ὄρεϊ πάντοθεν (‘[T]here is a plain in Asia shut in all round by mountains’, Hdt. ..). There are five gorges in this ring of mountains (as there are five named mountains ringing Thessaly and five named major rivers, Hdt. ..–), and the major river there, the Aces, used to divide into five channels (Hdt. ..), each passing through a gorge (the five named rivers of Thessaly in contrast combined into one stream, Hdt. ..). But now the Persian king has brought his power to bear on the landscape, turning the plain into a ‘sea’ (πέλαγος) very similar to the ‘sea’ (πέλαγος, Hdt. ..) Thessaly used to be: ἐπείτε δὲ ὑπὸ τῷ Πέρσῃ εἰσί, πεπόνθασι τοιόνδε· τὰς διασφάγας τῶν ὀρέων ἐνδείμας ὁ βασιλεὺς πύλας ἐπ’ ἑκάστῃ διασφάγι ἔστησε· ἀποκεκληι μένου δὲ τοῦ ὕδατος τῆς διεξόδου τὸ πεδίον τὸ ἐντὸς τῶν ὀρέων πέλαγος γίνεται, ἐνδιδόντος μὲν τοῦ ποταμοῦ, ἔχοντος δὲ οὐδαμῇ ἐξήλυσιν. (Hdt. ..) Since they came under the control of the Persians, they have received the following treatment: the king has blocked the gorges through the moun tains and set up gates in each of the gorges. Since the water has been prevented from escaping, the plain within the mountains has become a sea, because the river still flows in, but has no way out.

As one might expect, this causes a great deal of suffering for the local people: the king agrees to open the gates only after receiving pitiful entreaties (Hdt. ..) and considerable tribute (Hdt. ..). The echoes, then, in Jason’s speech to Medea of both the Herodotean description of Thessaly and behind that the plain of Asia controlled by the Persian king modify how we should read what he says. He mentions ‘good Deucalion’ (A.R. .) whom he cites as the ‘first to be king over men’ (A.R. .), and emphasises the distance of Thessaly from 

See Wendel : –, Vian :  app. crit.

Conclusion



Colchis, since no one has heard even of Aeaea (where Circe lives, and closer to Greece than the faraway Phasis, A.R. .–). But the Herodotean intertexts remind the readers that Thessaly does resemble Asia in some respects, and that later kings will not be as benevolent to their subjects as Deucalion, and also recall a time when Thessalians will come to an arrangement with an Eastern king, something which Jason raises as a possibility at the end of his speech to Medea: αἴθε γάρ, ὡς Θησῆι τότε ξυναρέσσατο Μίνως | ἀμφ’ αὐτῆς, ὣς ἄμμι πατὴρ τεὸς ἄρθμιος εἴη (‘Would that, just as once Minos came to an agreement with Theseus about her, so your father might be at one with us’, A.R. .–). This forms an example, then, of the use of Herodotus by Apollonius as a means for complicating the relationships between Greeks and non-Greeks in the Argonautica, and for problematising the notion of kingship. This in turn has consequences for readings of Apollonius which see particular royal characters or institutions in the epic as possible analogues for the Ptolemies or aspects of their kingdom.

Conclusion We have surveyed in this chapter several examples of a given passage or episode of Herodotus serving as the modello-esemplare for a particular section of the Argonautica. It is clear that several key Herodotean places (including the Halys and the Ister, Thessaly, Thera, Libya and Lemnos) and details of their treatment or importance in the Histories play important roles in Apollonius, especially at crucial junctures in the narrative of the epic, such as the beginning of the expedition, major episodes such as the stay on Lemnos, and the close of the poem. There is also clear and profound engagement with structurally important Herodotean logoi, notably the opening Croesus logos in book , part of a wider reflection in Apollonius of the Herodotean interest in beginnings. The broader engagement with Herodotean themes and interests is reinforced by particular verbal echoes and the adoption of salient narrative details (such as the tripod given to Triton by the Argonauts), and it is also clear that Herodotus can operate to modify or amplify interaction with other important intertexts of the Argonautica, such as Pindar’s Pythian . 



Medea, too, is interested in this conversation in the differences between Greeks and Colchians, noting the different attitudes to agreements among the two peoples and emphasising Aietes’ difference from Minos and hers from Ariadne (A.R. .–).  We shall explore these aspects further in Chapters  and . See pp. – below.



Telling Stories

Hence the particular interactions with Herodotus reinforce the broader importance for the Argonautica of Herodotus as a reference point and historiography as a form of discourse against which the epic should be read and which needs to be taken into account when gauging the nature of the interaction with other crucial intertexts, such as Pythian  and the Homeric epics. I have suggested with regard to the description of Thessaly Jason gives to Medea in book  that the Herodotean modello-esemplare here serves to suggest problems in the notion of kingship (especially as depicted in Herodotus) and to complicate the relationship between Greeks and non-Greeks (also a prominent Herodotean subject) and that this in turn suggests the difficulty in employing characters from the epic as analogues for Hellenistic kings or peoples. In the next two chapters, we shall explore these political ramifications, particularly in connection with kingship, tyranny and the representation of different ethnic groups.

 

Greeks and Non-Greeks

Introduction There is, as we have seen, a clear point of contact between Apollonius and Herodotus in the Argonautica’s use of elements of ethnographic discourse and what we might term an ethnographic approach to the heroic world. But the importance of Herodotean ethnography for Apollonius is not confined to adopting ethnographic attitudes or language. Central to Herodotus’ historical project is the examination of Greeks and non-Greeks (see Hdt.. prol.), in large part because these are two fundamental categories with which Herodotus parcels up the world, and understanding each of them and their relationship is crucial to understanding how they came to war with one another. As we shall see in this chapter, Herodotus’ descriptions of different ethnic groups, including Greeks, are complex and the relationship between Greeks and non-Greeks is not a straightforward picture of superior Greeks and inferior, utterly different barbarians, not least because the Greeks are not a homogeneous group and the categories are not impossible to bridge, from the long view of the historian. We investigate here how the particular descriptions of different peoples in Herodotus form crucial reference-points for Apollonius and his readers for the Argonautica’s own complex descriptions of Greeks, non-Greeks and their interaction. Thus this chapter follows on from the previous one in examining particular passages or sections of Herodotus as a modelloesemplare for elements of the Argonautica. The use of Herodotean   

See pp. – above for Herodotus as the modello-codice for ethnographic history and the constituent parts of ethnographic discourse. See Lloyd : –, : . See Gruen : – for Herodotus’ positive, nuanced portrayal of the Egyptians which (besides pointing out differences) subverts the straightforward ‘othering’ of the Egyptians and establishes numerous connections between Greeks and Egyptians, such as with respect to the gods. For the cultural relativism underlying Herodotus’ even-handed portrayal of Egyptian culture, see Lloyd : –.





Greeks and Non-Greeks

ethnographic descriptions in the epic will in turn have consequences for our reading of the relationship of the poem to its Ptolemaic socio-political context, since the place of Herodotus’ picture of Egypt within the Argonautica will be a key focus. Some recent readings of the Argonautica against this Ptolemaic context have sought to closely identify Colchis in the poem with Egypt (especially as depicted in Herodotus). I argue here that Apollonius’ employment of Herodotus and a wider range of ethnographic descriptions alongside closer critical attention to some crucial patterns and passages in Greek ethnographic writing more widely suggest that this identification cannot straightforwardly be made. Indeed, Apollonius’ portrayals of different ethnoi are, like Herodotus’, complex and do not usually allow one-to-one correspondences with Hellenistic analogues to be drawn. In order to begin our investigation of Apollonius’ use of specific ethnographic descriptions from Herodotus, we shall first briefly examine the conceptions of the worlds Greeks inhabit and their limits in the two texts.

Greek Worlds The Greek world of Apollonius’ Argonauts is a strikingly small one and one which is clearly (and significantly) articulated at the beginning of the poem. The great majority of the Argonauts as described in the Catalogue come from the Greek mainland and the core of Greek territory throughout antiquity and beyond: Thessaly (e.g. Asterion, Polyphemus, Admetus, Mopsus), Euboea (Canthus, Clytius, Iphitus), Athens (Butes and Phalerus), Boeotia (Tiphys), Argos and the Argolid (e.g. Phleias, Idmon), Sparta (the Dioscuri), Messenia (Lynceus and Idas, Periclymenus), Arcadia (e.g. Amphidamas and Cepheus), Elis (Augeas), Achaea (Asterius and Amphion), Aetolia (e.g. Meleager), Phocis (Iphitus). The northern boundary of the Argonautic Greek world is Thrace: the Catalogue begins with Orpheus, who was born in Pieria of a Thracian father (Oeagrus), and now rules in ‘Bistonian’ (i.e. Thracian) Pieria (A.R. .) and ends with the Boreads, Zetes and Calaïs, who are also Thracians like their father, though their mother is Athenian (A.R. .–). The only places outside this core territory which send Argonauts are Miletus in Asia Minor, the home   

Or islands lying immediately offshore: Telamon lives on Salamis, A.R. ., having been exiled from Aegina along with Peleus, .–. On the structure and contents of the Catalogue in general see Fränkel : –, Vian : –, Clauss : –. See Vian : , Clauss : . On the Catalogue’s spatial presentation of the Greek mainland see Thalmann : –.

Greek Worlds



city of Erginus (A.R. .–), and its neighbouring island Samos, whence comes Ancaeus (A.R. .–). The restricted dimensions of the Greek world of the Argonauts are further emphasised by the strong association of the Argonauts and their expedition with ‘Hellas’, ‘Pan-Achaea’ and ‘Pan-Hellenes’. The crowd, for example, observing the gathered Argonauts asks πόθι τόσσον ὅμιλον | ἡρώων γαίης Παναχαιίδος ἔκτοθι βάλλει; (‘Where beyond the land of All-Greece is he [sc. Pelias] sending such a great crowd of heroes?’, A.R. .–) and Argos describes them to Aietes as Παναχαιίδος εἴ τι φέριστον | ἡρώων (‘the best of the heroes from All-Greece’, A.R. .–). When the Argonauts meet the seer Phineus in book , he addresses them as ‘most outstanding of All-Greeks’ (Πανελλήνων προφερέστατοι, A.R. .), while the characters often describe their common return home with reference to ‘Hellas’, and/or contrast Hellas with Colchis. In part this portrays the quest for the golden fleece as a Panhellenic enterprise, and one directed at travelling into non-Greek territory, but it also emphasises how different the cultural and ethnic make-up of Mediterranean and Black Sea of the Argonauts is from the greatly expanded Greek oikoumenē of the Hellenistic period. The Greek world of the Histories is also much larger: it is precisely the presence of large numbers of Greeks and Greek settlements in Asia Minor    





On these exceptions, see Thalmann :  n. . On the use of ‘Hellas’ in the poem, see Fränkel : , Vian :  n.  and especially Dufner : – and Thalmann : –. Compare also the description by Jason of Medea as the ‘noble benefactor of all Achaea’ (Ἀχαιίδος . . . πάσης | . . . ἐσθλὴν ἐπαρωγόν, A.R. .–). E.g. ἐς Ἑλλάδα νόστος (‘return to Greece’, Jason, A.R. .; Jason, A.R. .), ἐς Ἑλλάδα γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι (‘to come to the land of Greece’, Jason, A.R. .; Jason, A.R. .), ἐς Ελλάδα γαῖαν ἀπήμονας ὔμμε κομίσσω (‘bring you back unharmed to the land of Greece’, Jason, A.R. .), ἐς Ἑλλάδα μαιομένοισιν | κῶας ἄγειν χρύσειον (‘eager to bring the golden fleece to Greece’, Jason, A.R. .–), χρύσεον Αἰήταο μεθ’ Ἑλλάδα κῶας ἄγοιντο (‘they might bring the golden fleece of Aietes to Greece’, Hera, A.R. .), ἐς Ἑλλάδα κῶας ἀνάξειν (‘will bring the fleece to Greece’, Hera, A.R. .), πρὶν ἐς Ἑλλάδα κῶας ἱκέσθαι (‘until the fleece comes to Greece’, Argos, A.R. .), ἐς Ἑλλάδα νοστήσαντες (‘returning home to Greece’, Jason, A.R. .), ἐς Ἑλλάδα γαῖαν ἱκώμεθα νοστήσαντες (‘when we return home and reach the land of Greece’, Jason, A.R. .). E.g. κεῖσέ τε καὶ παλίνορσον ἐς Ἑλλάδα (‘to there and back again to Greece’, Jason, A.R. .), ἀφ’ Ἑλλάδος Αἶαν ἱκέσθαι (‘to reach Aea from Greece’, Argos, A.R. ., of Phrixus’ journey), Ἑλλάδος ἐξ αὐτῆς νέομ’ ἐς πόλιν Αἰήταο (‘I am going from that very Greece to Aietes’ city’, A.R. .), ἀφ’ Ἑλλάδος . . . | . . . δεῦρο νέεσθε (‘[Y]ou have come here from Greece’, Aietes, A.R. .–), τὸ δὲ κῶας ἐς Ἑλλάδα τοῖό γ’ ἕκητι | οἴσεαι ἐξ Αἴης τηλοῦ ποθι (‘and because of this you will carry off the fleece to Greece, somewhere far from Aea’, Medea, A.R. .–). Compare the similar usage by the primary narrator at A.R. . (focalised by Paraebius): Ἑλλάδος ἐξανιόντα μετὰ πτόλιν Αἰήταο (‘going from Greece to the city of Aietes’). See Thalmann : – on the Argonautic journey as one which moves from a Greek ‘here’ to a non-Greek ‘there’.



Greeks and Non-Greeks

which bring the Greeks into conflict with Croesus and later the Persians, while there are Greeks settled across the Mediterranean, such as those in the west on Sicily and in north Africa at Cyrene, and to the east around the Black Sea in cities such as Borysthenes and Cyzicus. But the world of the Hellenistic period was more different still: the conquests of Alexander the Great and the creation of the large Greek kingdoms of his successors had greatly expanded the borders of the Greek world beyond its traditional limits, and thereby transformed the relationship between Greeks and nonGreek peoples. In Herodotus there are Greeks living in, for example, Egypt (the pharaoh Amasis gives them Naucratis in which to live, as well as permitting Greek visitors permission to set up precincts to their own gods, Hdt. .), but Egypt is (notoriously) one of the world’s quintessentially unGreek places, with customs and practices the reverse of (Greek) normality (Hdt. .), and so distinct are Greeks and Egyptians that the latter ‘avoid using Greek customs’ (ἑλληνικοῖσι δὲ νομαίοισι φεύγουσι χρᾶσθαι, Hdt. ..), and eschew physical contact with Greek mouths or cooking equipment, because Egyptians hold cows, which Greeks will and do eat, sacred (Hdt. ..). But Egypt is, of course, the location of the new Greek city of Alexandria, within the context of a kingdom ruled by the new (Macedonian) Greek kings/pharaohs of Egypt. It is here where Apollonius becomes head of one of the Ptolemies’ key (Greek) cultural institutions, the Library, in which (presumably) the Argonautica was composed and first received. The limits of the Greek world of the Argonauts themselves, in contrast to the greatly expanded geographical horizons of the Hellenistic age, are a clear sign of the antiquity of their voyage and how much has changed from the perspective of the Argonautic narrator and his audience, but they also 

 

 

Herodotus’ survey of the various Greek communities in Asia Minor lists (as Ionian cities) Miletus, Myous, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenae, Phocaea, the islands of Samos and Chios, and Erythrae (Hdt. .), (as Dorian) Lindos, Ialysus, Camirus (on the island of Rhodes), the island of Cos, Cnidos, Halicarnassus (Hdt. .), (as Aeolian) Cyme, Lerisae, New Walls, Temnus, Cilla, Notium, Aegiroessa, Pitane, Aegaeae, Myrina, Gryneia, Smyrna (now taken over by Ionians, Hdt. .), as well as various communities on the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos (Hdt. .). On the expansion of the Greek world in the Hellenistic period and its effects see, e.g., Shipley : –. See, e.g., Cartledge : –, Vasunia : – for the view that the Egyptians are the ‘other’ against which Greek identity is defined and compare the role of the Scythians in book  (on whom see Hartog ). In fact they avoid using the customs of most other people, too (Hdt. ..). On the development of Alexandria and its cultural institutions as a focus for the new Ptolemaic kingdom see, e.g., Erskine , Selden : –, Lloyd : –.

Home and Abroad



mean that as soon as the Argonauts leave Thessaly they are likely to encounter non-Greeks, even in territory which had long been Greek even for Herodotus. This in turn permits a nuanced portrayal of the different possible relationships between Greeks and non-Greeks, and also hints at the lack of permanence of the ethnic and cultural identities of particular places (and peoples). As the Argonauts travel within non-Greek territory throughout their journey they do so in many of the same places which feature prominently in another Panhellenic enterprise against non-Greeks, the wars against the Persians, into whose territory, from a Herodotean perspective, they are travelling (Colchis is part of the Persian empire, Hdt. ..–, and Xerxes’ army contains a Colchian contingent, Hdt. .). As we shall see, Herodotus’ account of the conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks and his portrayal of their identity, difference and interactions is accordingly an important and persistent reference-point (as an examplemodel or series of example-models) for Apollonius and his Hellenistic readers.

Home and Abroad The focus in much of the scholarship examining the portrayal of nonGreeks in both Apollonius and Herodotus has, naturally enough, focused on those peoples least like the Greeks, because (it is argued) it is through defining ethnic groups in terms of differences from the Greek norm that the ‘other’ is created and so what it is to be Greek is articulated. The Egyptians and the Scythians of the Histories and the Mossynoecians and Colchians of the Argonautica have therefore dominated discussion. But in both texts there are important non-Greeks who closely resemble Greeks in culture and nomoi, and whose place in the exploration of the boundaries of ethnic identity and its fixity or impermanence should also be examined, 





On the different types of contact found in the Argonautica as resembling those described in European literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries about Africa or Latin America, see Stephens : –. Medea herself is invoked at the beginning of the catalogue of Xerxes’ forces to explain the name of the Medes, who used to be known as Arians: ἀπικομένης δὲ Μηδείης τῆς Κολχίδος ἐξ Ἀθηνέων ἐς τοὺς Ἀρίους τούτους μετέβαλον καὶ οὗτοι τὸ οὔνομα (‘When Medea of Colchis arrived from Athens among these Arians they too changed their name’, Hdt. ..). From a Ptolemaic perspective, Persians are also traditional enemies of Egyptians as well as Greeks (hence the tendency in some hieroglyphic/demotic documents to present the Seleucids in terms of the Persians or Medes, on which see Barbantani : –). The Persians are also invoked as a comparison for more recent Ptolemaic enemies in (e.g.) SH  on the Galatian Wars. (See Barbantani : –, : –.) See, e.g., Hartog , Vasunia , Stephens .



Greeks and Non-Greeks

not least because such ‘border peoples’ form crucial meeting-points and occupy key meeting-places for Greek and non-Greek cultures in both Herodotus and Apollonius. These Greek-like non-Greeks, furthermore, demonstrate that, though the categories of Greek and non-Greek are of central importance in both texts, contact, influence, change and assimilation are also central to their depictions of various peoples: it is not only differences between Greeks and others which they emphasise. In both Herodotus and Apollonius, we meet very Greek-like nonGreeks near the beginning of their respective narratives. In the Histories Croesus (along with his ancestors) is the focus of the first logos, and the Lydians of whom he is one are described explicitly as very Greek in their nomoi: Λυδοὶ δὲ νόμοισι μὲν παραπλησίοισι χρέωνται καὶ Ἕλληνες, χωρὶς ἢ ὅτι τὰ θήλεα τέκνα καταπορνεύουσι (‘Lydians use similar customs to the Greeks, except for prostituting their daughters’, Hdt. ..). They are also identified in the same chapter as the originators of various customs shared with the Greeks, such as the use of coinage and the playing of various kinds of games. The Lydians seem very Greek in many ways, not least in the attention Croesus pays to Delphi (e.g. Hdt. .–, though the scale of his dedications associates him with Eastern wealth and despotic power) and the scrupulous hospitality he extends to Adrastus (Hdt. .–), the purification of whom is carried out in a way very close to the Greek manner (ἔστι δὲ παραπλησίη ἡ κάθαρσις τοῖσι Λυδοῖσι καὶ τοῖσι Ἕλλησι, ‘Greek and Lydian purification-rites are similar’, Hdt. ..). It is notable that the non-Greeks whose king is one of the reasons identified by Herodotus for the conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks (Hdt. ..) should be so similar to the Greeks themselves. Given this similarity it is also striking that the Lydians should be characterised as exemplifying the delicacy and ‘softness’ of a people benefitting from many blessings in contrast to the asperity of the Persians: σιτέονται δὲ οὐκ ὅσα ἐθέλουσι ἀλλ’ ὅσα ἔχουσι, χώρην ἔχοντες τρηχέαν. πρὸς δὲ οὐκ οἴνῳ διαχρέωνται ἀλλὰ ὑδροποτέουσι, οὐ σῦκα δὲ ἔχουσι τρώγειν, οὐκ ἄλλο ἀγαθὸν οὐδέν. τοῦτο μὲν δή, εἰ νικήσεις, τί σφέας   



See Pelling , Gruen  for the limitations of approaches which see self-definition as the only focus of Greek interest in non-Greek peoples. On the Herodotean description of the Lydians, see Lombardo , Thomas : –, Munson : –. It is worth noting, however, that the differences in Greek and Lydian nomoi are greater if the Lydian aversion to male (as well as female) nudity – which is a significant factor in the Gyges–Candaules story (Hdt. ..) – applies (as it seems to) to later Lydians also. Their military equipment is also ‘very like’ that of Greeks (Hdt. ..).

Home and Abroad



ἀπαιρήσεαι, τοῖσί γε μὴ ἔστι μηδέν; τοῦτο δέ, ἢν νικηθῇς, μάθε ὅσα ἀγαθὰ ἀποβαλέεις· γευσάμενοι γὰρ τῶν ἡμετέρων ἀγαθῶν περιέξονται οὐδὲ ἀπωστοὶ ἔσονται. (Hdt. .. ) They eat not whatever the want but what they have, since they have a rough land. They do not consume wine but drink water, and they do not have figs to eat, or anything else good. Since they have nothing, what will you gain if you are victorious? But if you’re defeated, consider all the good things you will lose. Once they have tasted the good things of our life they will hang onto them and will not be driven away.

These are the words of Sandanis the Lydian to his king when attempting to dissuade him from the fateful invasion of Persia. The transformative effect of the defeat of Lydia by the Persians on the latter is confirmed by the Herodotean narrator: Πέρσῃσι γάρ, πρὶν Λυδοὺς καταστρέψασθαι, ἦν οὔτε ἁβρὸν οὔτε ἀγαθὸν οὐδέν (Hdt. .., ‘Before the Persians conquered the Lydians they had nothing delicate or good’). Here Greek-like non-Greeks are the example of luxury and ease in opposition to the hard Persians, whose ‘rough land’ (χώρην . . . τρηχέαν) is described in terms which closely resemble the closing vignette of the Histories, where Cyrus (the Persian king who defeats Croesus) rejects Artembares’ idea to emigrate from their ‘small and rough land’ (γῆν . . . ὀλίγην καὶ ταύτην τρηχέαν, Hdt. ..) with the advice that ‘soft lands tend to breed soft men’ (φιλέειν γὰρ ἐκ τῶν μαλακῶν χώρων μαλακοὺς ἄνδρας γίνεσθαι, Hdt. ..). The hardness of the Persians in the speeches of both Sandanis and Cyrus reminds us of the complexity of Herodotus’ portrayal of the Persians, who are far from effeminate barbarians, but the fact that it is the Hellenised Lydians who bring them into contact with luxury, with its apparent potential to alter national and ethnic characteristics, has implications for Greek readers of the Histories, especially among those descended from or associated with the future conquerors of the Persians. The Lemnians occupy an analogous position in the Argonautica. The Argonauts’ sojourn in Lemnos is the first major episode of their journey, and depicts the first interaction between Greeks and non-Greeks in the epic. The Lemnians are clearly foreigners, from the perspective of the Argonauts, since Heracles objects forcefully to the Argonauts’ lingering    

Note that Persians adopt more customs from foreigners than any other people (Hdt. ..). On the place of ‘environmental determinism’ in Herodotus, see Lloyd : –, Thomas : –, Flower & Marincola : –. See Bowie : –, Gruen : – and see also pp. – below. For another Argonautic people made closely to resemble Greeks, cf. the Phaeacians of book  with Dufner : . See also Vian : .



Greeks and Non-Greeks

on the island by asserting that ‘we will not certainly not become glorious shut up like this for ages with foreign women’ (οὐ μὰν εὐκλειεῖς γε σὺν ὀθνείῃσι γυναιξὶν | ἐσσόμεθ’ ὧδ’ ἐπὶ δηρὸν ἐελμένοι, A.R. .–), and Lemnos is described as ‘Sintian’ (A.R. .) when the Argonauts first arrive there, underlining its non-Greek ancestry. In other ways, however, the Lemnian women appear Greek: their main concern at the beginning of the episode is the threat of invasion from Thrace (A.R. .–), which was the boundary of Greece in the Catalogue, while they come from ‘throughout the city’ (ἀνὰ πτόλιν) to gather in assembly (εἰς ἀγορήν, A.R. .–), recalling not only the Athenian assembly but also its comic inversions in Aristophanes, as at the beginning of the Ecclesiazusae or Lysistrata, where women also gather to discuss their collective action and receive advice from a wise, older woman (though Apollonius’ Polyxo seems older than Praxagora or Lysistrata). Lemnian society has much in common with Greek norms, as the locales in which Hypsipyle claims the captive Thracian girls were preferred to native women reveal: choruses, agora, feasts (χοροῖς ἀγορῇ τε καὶ εἰλαπίνῃσι, A.R. .). At the close of the epic we again find ‘Sintian Lemnos’ (A.R. .), now incorporated into the foundation-story of (Greek) Thera. Lemnos is the starting point for the descendants of the Argonaut Euphemus (and the Lemnian women) who go first to Sparta and thence to Thera (A.R. .–). The narrator marks these events as happening long after Euphemus (A.R. .), but this example of contact between Greeks and non-Greeks begins a process of colonisation and diffusion which transforms originally non-Greek spaces into Greek ones and as such forms an example of the transformative power of the Argonauts’ voyage. It also underlines that the association of places and peoples is not constant, 

     

The Sintians are not Greeks, being marked as having ‘savage speech’ (ἀγριοφώνους) at Od. .. They are usually assumed to be Thracian (Mooney  ad loc., Delage : , Vian : ). Herodotus gives an account of the beginning of the incorporation of non-Greek Lemnos (described by him as ‘Pelasgian’) into the Greek (esp. Athenian) world by Miltiades at the end of the sixth century (Hdt. .–). For Lemnos/Lemnians as blurring the boundaries between Greek and non-Greek see Thalmann :  with n. . Cf. also the δήμοιο ἔπος (‘decision of the people’) which Iphinoe is to convey to Jason at A.R. . and . Hypsipyle describes her father as having ruled over ‘citizens’ (ἀστοῖσι) at A.R. .). See DeForest : – on the Aristophanic parallels here. See A.R. .– for Polyxo’s age and frailty. See pp. – above, and pp. –, – on the place of Cyrene (founded from Thera, but unmentioned at the close of the epic) in the poem. On Greek and non-Greek space in the Argonautica, see Williams , Harder , Endsjó , Cusset , Thalmann , esp. –.

Home and Abroad



nor are the characteristics or identities of peoples, who can combine and mix (as in the Greek descendants of the non-Greek Lemnian women) as well as influence the customs and practices of others, as the Greeks and Lydians have done in the case of each other in Herodotus. And it is worth pointing out the non-Greek origin of various Greek peoples in Herodotus in this connection, especially the Herodotean account of Athenian prehistory (which comes in the midst of the Croesus/Lydian logos), where he makes the Athenians originally non-Greek Pelasgians (Hdt. ..) who probably, if one can reason from the languages spoken by existing Pelasgian populations, originally spoke a different, non-Greek language, before they were Hellenised (τὸ Ἀττικὸν ἔθνος ἐὸν Πελασγικὸν ἅμα τῇ μεταβολῇ τῇ ἐς Ἕλληνας καὶ τὴν γλῶσσαν μετέμαθε, Hdt. .., ‘The Athenian people, being Pelasgian, when they changed into Greeks learnt their language also’). Nevertheless, crude and simplistic perspectives on non-Greek populations can be found within both Apollonius and Herodotus, even if the texts as a whole work against straightforward ethnic stereotyping. Here too Herodotus allows us as critics (as he will also have allowed the epic’s Hellenistic readers) to gauge the difference between crude and simplistic presentations of ethnic groups and the more nuanced and complex picture found in the Argonautica as a whole. In effect, these different perspectives found (not coincidentally) within both Herodotus and Apollonius provide models for viewing and reading non-Greek peoples. For example, the crude picture of the Persians as luxurious, soft, weak barbarians, which Herodotus’ primary narrator for the most part resists, does occur in the account of one of the internal ethnographers in the Histories, Aristagoras of Miletus, when he is trying to persuade the Spartans to attack them: εὐπετέως δὲ ὑμῖν ταῦτα οἷά τε χωρέειν ἐστί· οὔτε γὰρ οἱ βάρβαροι ἄλκιμοι εἰσί, ὑμεῖς τε τὰ ἐς τὸν πόλεμον ἐς τὰ μέγιστα ἀνήκετε ἀρετῆς πέρι. ἥ τε μάχη αὐτῶν ἐστὶ τοιήδε, τόξα καὶ αἰχμὴ βραχέα· ἀναξυρίδας δὲ ἔχοντες ἔρχονται ἐς τὰς μάχας καὶ κυρβασίας ἐπὶ τῇσι κεφαλῇσι. οὕτω εὐπετέες χειρωθῆναι εἰσί. ἔστι δὲ καὶ ἀγαθὰ τοῖσι τὴν ἤπειρον ἐκείνην νεμομένοισι ὅσα οὐδὲ τοῖσι συνάπασι ἄλλοισι, ἀπὸ χρυσοῦ ἀρξαμένοισι, ἄργυρος καὶ χαλκὸς καὶ ἐσθὴς ποικίλη καὶ ὑποζύγιά τε καὶ ἀνδράποδα· (Hdt. .. )

 

On the Herodotean account of the origins of the Athenians, see Thomas : –. See Rood : .



Greeks and Non-Greeks It is easy for you to achieve these things, because the barbarians are not brave and you have come to the greatest excellence in fighting wars. Their method of fighting is bows and short spears, and they wear trousers into battle and have bonnets on their heads. This is how easily they can be overcome. And those living in that continent have more than all other peoples together, starting with gold, silver and bronze and elaborate clothing and yoke animals and slaves.

Here Aristagoras clearly has reason to under-emphasise how formidable the Persians really are as military opponents, and exaggerate their wealth, but his simplistic description stands in sharp contrast to the nuanced portrayal which the Herodotean narrator (and the Histories as a whole) give. In Apollonius, in contrast, the most important internal ethnographer (Phineus) is more measured and Herodotean in his assessment of the various non-Greek peoples the Argonauts will encounter on their journey to Colchis: ἀγχίμολον δ’ ἐπὶ τῇ πολέας παρανεῖσθε κολωνοὺς Παφλαγόνων, τοῖσίν τ’ Ἐνετήιος ἐμβασίλευσεν πρῶτα Πέλοψ, τοῦ καί περ ἀφ’ αἵματος εὐχετόωνται.

(A.R. . )

Near it you will sail past many peaks of the Paphlagonians, whom Enetian Pelops first ruled over, and whose blood they claim. ἔνθα δὲ Δοίαντος πεδίον, σχεδόθεν δὲ πόληες τρισσαὶ Ἀμαζονίδων

(A.R. . )

Here is the plain of Doeas, and close by are the three cities of the Amazons. νήσου δὲ προτέρωσε καὶ ἠπείροιο περαίης φέρβονται Φίλυρες· Φιλύρων δ’ ἐφύπερθεν ἔασιν Μάκρωνες, μετὰ δ’ αὖ περιώσια φῦλα Βεχείρων· ἑξείης δὲ Σάπειρες ἐπὶ σφίσι ναιετάουσιν, Βύζηρες δ’ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ὁμώλακες, ὧν ὕπερ ἤδη αὐτοὶ Κόλχοι ἔχονται ἀρήιοι.

(A.R. . )

Beyond the island and the land mass opposite live the Philyres, and the Macrones are beyond the Philyres, and then in turn the numberless tribes of Becheirians. Next after them live the Sapeires, and the Byzeres their immediate neighbours, beyond whom at last are found nearby the warlike Colchians themselves.



See in general on Phineus Vian : –.

Home and Abroad



Phineus here concentrates on the geographical location and surroundings of the peoples he mentions, with little in the way of evaluation or comment, except indications of such things as ancestry (Paphlagonians), riches (Tibarenians), size (Becheirians) or warlike character (Colchians), and employs some clear features of ethnographic discourse, such as the middle use of ἔχω in the sense of ‘border on’ or ‘be nearby’ at A.R. . (cf. the similar use in Aristagoras’ speech at Hdt. ..). There are also relatively few details of exotic or peculiar behaviour in Phineus’ account: he notes the hard life of the Chalybes, who are the ‘most wretched of men’ (σμυγερώτατοι ἀνδρῶν, A.R. .), and the derivation of the name of the Mossynoecians (or ‘Tower-dwellers’) from the wooden ‘mossynes’ which they build as homes (A.R. .–b), but there is much less elaboration of oddities of custom than in the narrator’s corresponding account of the Black Sea peoples later in book . In part this is because the narrator’s second account is still to come and also because Phineus is relating instructions to the Argonauts on how successfully to complete their journey to Colchis (rather than for the purpose of describing the peoples they will meet en route). But it also characterises Phineus as a more detached and less emotional observer than the primary narrator will prove to be. Phineus is sometimes described as sharing the Hellenocentric perspective of the Apollonian narrator (and Herodotus), but it is worth noting that he himself is one of the non-Greeks the Argonauts encounter, though one very close to Greeks in custom and character. He is a Thracian, having been a king in Thrace (A.R. .), and married to the sister of the (Thracian) Boreads Zetes and Calaïs (A.R. .–), who are destined to release him from the torment of the Harpies (A.R. .–, –). It is interesting that his wife, sister of the Boreads, should be called Cleopatra (A.R. .), given this name’s Macedonian (and later Ptolemaic) associations, but she already has this name in Sophocles. Phineus’ Hellenocentrism is restrained, since he only dwells on Chalybes’ hard life and the Mossynoecians’ unusual homes, but the primary narrator is much more explicit in his use of Greek customs as the norm against which the nomoi of     

See Rood :  on this usage by Aristagoras. On which see Fränkel : – and pp. – above. Cf. Fränkel :  on Apollonius’ ‘sentimentalen Einschlag’ at A.R. .–, f. E.g. Hunter : –, Fusillo : –. Soph. fr.  P.: see Vian : . The female double of Patroclus in Phoenix’ account of Meleager is also called Cleopatra (Il. .), on which see Willcock :  with n. , Hainsworth : .



Greeks and Non-Greeks

others are to measured, as well as much more open in his evaluation of these nomoi, and more willing to expand upon strange practices. He draws attention, for example, to the normal aspects of (Greek) agricultural life the Chalybes lack, and the peculiar birth-customs of the Tibarenians, about whom Phineus had been much more circumspect: Τοῖσι μὲν οὔτε βοῶν ἄροτος μέλει, οὔτε τις ἄλλη φυταλιὴ καρποῖο μελίφρονος· οὐδὲ μὲν οἵ γε ποίμνας ἑρσήεντι νομῷ ἔνι ποιμαίνουσιν. ἀλλὰ σιδηροφόρον στυφελὴν χθόνα γατομέοντες ὦνον ἀμείβονται βιοτήσιον, οὐδέ ποτέ σφιν ἠὼς ἀντέλλει καμάτων ἄτερ, ἀλλὰ κελαινῇ λιγνύι καὶ καπνῷ κάματον βαρὺν ὀτλεύουσιν.

(A.R. . )

[The Chalybes] have no concern for ox ploughing or planting honey sweet fruit, nor do they shepherd flocks in a dewy meadow. They cleave the hard, iron bearing land and exchange it for life giving goods. Never for them does a dawn without toil rise for them, but in the midst of black, smoky flames they endure heavy labour. . . . σώοντο παρὲκ Τιβαρηνίδα γαῖαν· ἔνθ’ ἐπεὶ ἄρ κε τέκωνται ὑπ’ ἀνδράσι τέκνα γυναῖκες, αὐτοὶ μὲν στενάχουσιν ἐνὶ λεχέεσσι πεσόντες, κράατα δησάμενοι· ταὶ δ’ εὖ κομέουσιν ἐδωδῇ ἀνέρας ἠδὲ λοετρὰ λεχώια τοῖσι πένονται.

(A.R. . )

. . . they rushed past the Tibarenian land. There when women bear children to their menfolk, the men themselves fall to bed groaning, their heads bound, and the women take good care of them with food and draw them birth baths.

The Argonautica and the Histories also share some crucial spaces for contact between Greeks and non-Greeks, contact which can have profound and lasting consequences; here I suggest that the Herodotean presentation of particular locations is acting as an example-model for Apollonius’ own characterisation of the same location. One such space is Cyzicus, which is the next extended episode after Lemnos narrated in the Argonauts’ journey out to Colchis (A.R. .–) and also forms in Herodotus 



Compare also the respective descriptions by Phineus and the primary narrator of the Mossynoecians. On the inverted nomoi of the Mossynoecians, see pp. – below. On Nymphodorus as Apollonius’ source for the Tibarenians, see Vian : . This does not rule out, of course, significant interaction with other example-models: see on Homer n.  below and see in general pp. – above.

Home and Abroad



a key site for the (dangerous) encounter with foreign customs which travel can bring about. It is in Cyzicus, we are told (at Hdt. ..), that the Scythian sage Anacharsis witnesses the performance of some impressive rites ‘to the mother of the gods’ (τῇ μητρὶ τῶν θεῶν, i.e. Rhea/Cybele), which he decides to reenact should he return home safely: εὔξατο τῇ μητρὶ ὁ Ἀνάχαρσις . . . θύσειν τε κατὰ ταὐτὰ κατὰ ὥρα τοὺς Κυζικηνοὺς ποιεῦντας καὶ παννυχίδα στήσειν (‘he prayed to the goddess that . . . he would perform the same sacrifices he had seen the Cyzicenes perform and maintain a night-vigil’). Anacharsis is as good as his vow, and he recreates the rites he has seen by entering a thickly wooded area called Hylaea and carrying them out. But (as we have seen above), he is spotted by a Scythian and killed for adopting foreign practices after his travels in Greece (ὅτι ἐξεδήμησέ τε ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα καὶ ξεινικοῖσι ἔθεσι διεχρήσατο, ‘because he travelled to Greece and adopted foreign customs’, Hdt. ..). As Hartog has observed, Anacharsis’ Hylaea is a double for Cyzicus in Scythian territory, since the worship of the mother of the gods is associated with a wooded area at Cyzicus. This association is clearest in Apollonius, whose own Cyzicus episode clearly develops the Anacharsis story in Herodotus, with important consequences for its depiction of the relationship between Greeks and non-Greeks. Anacharsis worships the mother of the gods with drum and images (τύμπανον τε ἔχων καὶ ἐκδησάμενος ἀγάλματα, ‘holding a drum and having hung images from himself’, Hdt. ..), while Apollonius gives us an account of how the Argonauts create one such image of the goddess (A.R. .–) and also bring about this worship with the drum: ἄμυδις δὲ νέοι Ὀρφῆος ἀνωγῇ σκαίροντες βηταρμὸν ἐνόπλιον ὠρχήσαντο, καὶ σάκεα ξιφέεσσιν ἐπέκτυπον, ὥς κεν ἰωὴ δύσφημος πλάζοιτο δι’ ἠέρος, ἣν ἔτι λαοὶ κηδείῃ βασιλῆος ἀνέστενον. ἔνθεν ἐσαιεὶ ῥόμβῳ καὶ τυπάνῳ Ῥείην Φρύγες ἱλάσκονται.

(A.R. . )

At the same time, at Orpheus’ bidding, the young men skipped and danced the armed dance, and struck their shields with their swords, so that ill omened shouts  



 See pp. – above. Hartog : – with n.  where he cites A.R. .–. Another important reference-point for Apollonius’ Cyzicus episode is the Odyssey, in particular the wanderings of Odysseus, several episodes of which are developed in the Argonauts’ sojourn at Cyzicus: see Clauss : – and especially Dufner : –. On the aetion here see Vian : , Clauss : – (outlining the parallels with Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus).



Greeks and Non-Greeks

would drift away through the air, those the people were still groaning aloud in grief for the king. Since then the Phrygians have always appeased Rhea with wheel and drum.

It is the Argonauts themselves who initiate the form of worship which Anacharsis imitates, but this is marked in Apollonius as a Phrygian (i.e. non-Greek) practice, albeit one begun by the example of Greeks. This takes place in Cyzicus, which is outside the Argonauts’ restricted notion of Hellas, but which will become a Greek city in the future (when Anacharsis will visit it). But the rites Anacharsis observes are not straightforwardly Greek; rather they are Phrygian rites adopted by the Greek inhabitants of Cyzicus. And the aetiology does not end here: the Argonauts ascend Mt Dindymum because they are delayed by ill-omened winds in the wake of the death of the eponymous king of the region, Cyzicus himself. He is not a Greek but a closely related Greek-like non-Greek and king of the Doliones, and despite his impeccable welcome for the Argonauts he is killed by accident at the hands of Jason himself (A.R. .–). The suicide of his recent bride Cleite leads to another custom which persists at Cyzicus to the narrator’s day, though this one is marked as Greek: ἔνθ’ ἔτι νῦν, εὖτ’ ἄν σφιν ἐτήσια χύτλα χέωνται | Κύζικον ἐνναίοντες Ἰάονες, ἔμπεδον αἰεὶ | πανδήμοιο μύλης πελανοὺς ἐπαλετρεύουσιν (‘Even now, when the Ionians who live in Cyzicus pour their yearly libations for them, they always grind their offerings at the public mill’, A.R. .–). Cyzicus is thus a prominent non-Greek space in the Argonautica which is transformed by its contact with the Argonauts (its name too, though this is not explicit in the epic, originates as a commemoration of the king killed by Jason). It is the same space (now a Greek one) which in Herodotus transforms non-Greek Anacharsis who recreates Cyzicus and its rites in Scythia and is killed, rites which were originally performed by Greeks. Cyzicus (the king) and Anacharsis are both examples of the danger of travel and contact with other peoples and their customs, but also a reminder of the great power of such contact to change the character of peoples and places. The power of travel and the contact with foreign peoples which it brings is also prominent in the shape of the sons of    

See Stephens : , Thalmann :  on the most non-Greek element of the ritual thus being given a Greek origin. Hartog : . See Thalmann : –. According to the scholia, Cyzicus’ father Aeneus was a Thessalian king. Cf. Vian : – n. . See in general Stephens : –, Mori a: – on the transformative power of different types of contact among different ethnic groups (and their constituent members).

Home and Abroad



Phrixus in the Argonautica, who owe their very existence to the travels of their Greek father to Colchis. Their mixed character as half-Greek, halfColchian is part of the shadow which hangs over the second half of the epic, the future fate of the half-Greek, half-Colchian children of Jason and Medea (who are therefore their first cousins), but they also point us to the ability of voyaging to other places to transform them and the people who live in them. Phrixus has travelled to Colchis and fathered mixed children, Medea will move in the opposite direction, while the various journeys of Greeks and Colchians which are initiated by those travels of Phrixus (such as the Argonauts’ in search of the fleece he left in Colchis) or Medea (such as those of the Colchians sent in pursuit of her by her father Aietes) will leave not only altered nomoi but also various populations scattered around the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Such settlements are part of the continuing process of the change in the identity and character of places and peoples which is clearly under way even in the Argonautic period, and the continuation of which through subsequent travels and conquests (such as those of Xerxes or Alexander the Great) explain why the Hellenistic Mediterranean is not the same as that which was encountered by the Argonauts. The travels and interaction of Greeks and non-Greeks leave their traces in the peoples and customs along the routes of their journeys. It is appropriate to close this section by considering another people who feature prominently in Herodotus and are of obvious relevance for Apollonius: the Macedonians. Herodotus devotes considerable attention to question of their Greekness, or, more precisely, that of their kings, but it is clear that they could be presented (at least in the classical period) as foreigners, since the Spartans characterise them as such in their message to the Athenians when Alexander I of Macedon is attempting to detach the Athenians from their alliance after Salamis: βαρβάροισί ἐστι οὔτε πιστὸν οὔτε ἀληθὲς οὐδέν (‘There is nothing trustworthy or reliable in barbarians’,



 

For example, the Argonaut Polyphemus founds a city (Cius) among the Mysians in the Propontis (A.R. .–), while different groups of Colchians settle in the Adriatic (A.R. .–) and with the Phaeacians (A.R. .–). It is also clear that the pattern of travel, contact and change was under way even before the Argonauts, as the example of Sesostris makes clear (A.R. .–), on which see pp. – below. Ἕλληνας δὲ εἶναι τούτους τοὺς ἀπὸ Περδίκκεω γεγονότας, κατά περ αὐτοὶ λέγουσι, αὐτός τε οὕτω τυγχάνω ἐπιστάμενος καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐν τοῖσι ὄπισθε λόγοισι ἀποδέξω ὡς εἰσὶ Ἕλληνες (‘That these men descended from Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself know and moreover I shall demonstrate that they are Greeks in subsequent sections’, Hdt. ..). Herodotus goes on to cite the participation of Alexander I of Macedon in the Olympics, which were restricted to Greeks, as proof of his Hellenicity.



Greeks and Non-Greeks

Hdt. ..). In response to this Spartan appeal the Athenians famously invoke the notion of their common Hellenicity, τὸ Ἑλληνικόν (Hdt. ..), including their common language, rites and customs. Macedonians such as Alexander, it is implied, are excluded from this shared inheritance. It is striking, therefore, that it is in the immediately preceding chapters that Herodotus gives his proof of the Greek (because Argive) descent of Alexander (Hdt. .–). Alexander I, the medising messenger of Mardonius and Xerxes is himself a direct ancestor of Alexander the Great, whose successors the (Macedonian) Ptolemies presented themselves as being. Alexander I’s role in the Persian Wars and his characterisation in Herodotus have both positive and negative elements from a Ptolemaic perspective, as we will examine in Chapter , but the possibility that a king the Greekness of whose people could be (however tendentiously) contested could in fact be or become Greek (here his passing of intelligence to the Greek side before Plataea is important, Hdt. .–) and the wider depiction of national and ethnic identity as both fluid and graduated in Herodotus may well have formed part of the appeal of Herodotus for Apollonius working in the complex ethnic and cultural situation of Ptolemaic Egypt, as a model for presenting the interactions between Greeks and non-Greeks in their full depth and complexity. It is to Egypt that we will turn next.

Egyptians and Otherness In the last twenty years much more attention has been (rightly) paid to the Ptolemaic and Egyptian context of Hellenistic poetry such as the Argonautica, and accordingly Egyptians, including those in Herodotus, have 



 

Demosthenes goes much further, denying any Greek connection whatsoever for Philip II (οὐ μόνον οὐχ Ἕλληνος ὄντος οὐδὲ προσήκοντος οὐδὲν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, ‘not only not a Greek but not related to Greeks in any way’, D. .), but his vehemence implies some did defend or assume the Hellenicity of some Macedonians, such as Philip, as Isocrates does (Isoc. .). See Hunter : , Rice : –. The example of the importance of the possession of Alexander’s body after his death is one sign of his importance as an authorising figure for the Ptolemaic kingdom. See Erskine . For the Ptolemies as self-consciously Macedonian see Fantuzzi  on Posidippus’ hippika, who argues convincingly that the emphasis on the Macedonian identity there is related to their claims to be the successors of Alexander. See Priestley : – for Herodotus as appealing to those wanting to present non-Greeks sympathetically. See, e.g., Hunter , : –, Koenen , Selden , Sistakou , Stephens , , , , Thalmann : –, –. On the Egyptian resonances of some aspects of other Hellenistic poems, such as Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus, see Stephens : –, Bulloch : .

Egyptians and Otherness



bulked large in thinking about the presentation of non-Greeks in Apollonius. But the complex and pervasive presence of Herodotus in the Argonautica which we have been exploring, and the undermining of straightforward presentations of dichotomies between Greeks and nonGreeks explored above, should make us wary of reading ethnic differences in Apollonius solely in terms of Greeks and Egyptians. The complexities of the ethnic and cultural mix not only of the Hellenistic world after Alexander, but also of the Herodotean world we have examined, mean, for example, that we cannot assume ‘otherness’ or difference in Hellenistic poetry is code for Egypt. Egypt, however, unquestionably is present in the Argonautica. Argos in book  makes a clear reference to (though without naming) the legendary pharaoh Sesostris when describing the inscribed/engraved Colchian pillars which offer the Argonauts an alternative (and fantastical) route home: ἦμος ὅτ’ Ἠερίη πολυλήιος ἐκλήιστο μήτηρ Αἴγυπτος προτερηγενέων αἰζηῶν, καὶ ποταμὸς Τρίτων εὐρύρροος ᾧ ὕπο πᾶσα ἄρδεται Ἠερίη, Διόθεν δέ μιν οὔ ποτε δεύει ὄμβρος ἅλις, προχοῇσι δ' ἀνασταχύουσιν ἄρουραι. ἔνθεν δή τινά φασι πέριξ διὰ πᾶσαν ὁδεῦσαι Εὐρώπην Ἀσίην τε, βίῃ καὶ κάρτεϊ λαῶν σφωιτέρων θάρσει τε πεποιθότα· μυρία δ’ ἄστη νάσσατ’ ἐποιχόμενος, τὰ μὲν ἤ ποθι ναιετάουσιν ἠὲ καὶ οὔ· πουλὺς γὰρ ἄδην ἐπενήνοθεν αἰών. (A.R. . )

when the name of Egypt, mother of older men, was Eërie, rich in grain, and Triton was the broad flowing river by which all of Eërie is watered, since rain from Zeus never wets it profusely, but the fields bear crops because of its streams. From here they say a man traversed all of Europe and Asia, trusting in the force, power and bravery of his men. And he founded numberless cities as he went, some of which no doubt are inhabited, and some not, since a great age has long since passed.

One of the cities founded by this Egyptian conqueror of Europe and Asia is Colchian Aea itself (A.R. .–), and the descendants of the men settled there by him preserve the γραπτῦς πατέρων ἕθεν (‘writings of their fathers’, A.R. .), that is the pillars described by Argos (A.R. .–). 



Cf. the close association made between the ‘inverted’ (from a Greek perspective) Mossynoecians of the Black Sea coast and the Egyptians at Stephens :  with n. , Thalmann :  and see further pp. – below. See also pp. – above.



Greeks and Non-Greeks

Apollonius clearly picks up several details of the Herodotean account of Sesostris (which is therefore an important example-model for this section of the epic), who marked the path of his conquests by erecting στήλαι or ‘pillars’ inscribed with details commemorating his name and victories: ἐνθεῦτεν δὲ ὡς ὀπίσω ἀπίκετο ἐς Αἴγυπτον, κατὰ τῶν ἱρέων τὴν φάτιν στρατιὴν πολλὴν [τῶν] λαβὼν ἤλαυνε διὰ τῆς ἠπείρου, πᾶν ἔθνος τὸ ἐμπο δὼν καταστρεφόμενος. ὁτέοισι μέν νυν αὐτῶν ἀλκίμοισι ἐνετύγχανε καὶ δεινῶς γλιχομένοισι [περὶ] τῆς ἐλευθερίης, τούτοισι μὲν στήλας ἐνίστη ἐς τὰς χώρας διὰ γραμμάτων λεγούσας τό τε ἑωυτοῦ οὔνομα καὶ τῆς πάτρης καὶ ὡς δυνάμι τῇ ἑωυτοῦ κατεστρέψατό σφεας. (Hdt. .. ) Next, when he returned to Egypt (according to the account of the priests), he took a great army and drove across the continent, conquering every people in his path. For whichever stalwart people he met with who clung fiercely to their freedom he set up pillars in their lands proclaiming in writing his own name and homeland and how he had conquered them with his might.

Recently scholarship on the use of Herodotus by Apollonius here has focused principally on the connection between Colchis and Egypt which the Sesostris story establishes, and which is made explicit in Herodotus (φαίνονται μὲν γὰρ ἐόντες οἱ Κόλχοι Αἰγύπτιοι. νοήσας δὲ πρότερον αὐτὸς ἢ ἀκούσας ἄλλων λέγω, ‘the Colchians are clearly Egyptian, as I realised before hearing this from others’, Hdt. ..), and on the fact that Apollonius has also constructed his account in terms which strongly recall another city-founding world-conqueror, Alexander the Great. In this Apollonius may be developing Hecataeus of Abdera and the traditions which gave rise to the later Alexander Romance (cf. A... Kroll), which both make an explicit connection between Sesostris (called Sesoösis by Hecataeus and Sesonchosis in the Alexander Romance) and Alexander. But the interaction with Herodotus here in the Argonautica goes further than an assimilation of Alexander and Sesostris, as we can see if we look more closely at the wider context of the Sesostris story in Herodotus. In the epilogue to his treatment of the pharaoh Herodotus describes six massive statues of Sesostris and his wife (thirty cubits high, i.e. over 

 

See Livrea : , Stephens : –, Thalmann : –, Hunter : –. On Apollonius’ use in this section of Hecataeus of Abdera (as preserved in Diodorus Siculus) see Stephens : –, Hunter :  and p. , n.  above, but see also p. , n.  for the problems of reconstruction involved and pp. – on Hecataeus working in a Herodotean tradition. E.g. Stephens : –. See Fusillo : –, Stephens : – and especially now Priestley : –.

Egyptians and Otherness



thirteen metres tall) and sons (twenty cubits high) which he erected in front of the temple of Hephaestus (Hdt. ..). The Persian king Darius wanted to erect his own statue in front of these, but the Egyptian priest of Hephaestus refused: τῶν δὴ ὁ ἱρεὺς τοῦ Ἡφαίστου χρόνῳ μετέπειτα πολλῷ Δαρεῖον τὸν Πέρσην οὐ περιεῖδε ἱστάντα ἔμπροσθε ἀνδριάντα, φὰς οὔ οἱ πεποιῆσθαι ἔργα οἷά περ Σεσώστρι τῷ Αἰγυπτίῳ. Σέσωστριν μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα τε καταστρέψασθαι ἔθνεα οὐκ ἐλάσσω ἐκείνου καὶ δὴ καὶ Σκύθας, Δαρεῖον δὲ οὐ δυνασθῆναι Σκύθας ἑλεῖν. οὐκ ὦν δίκαιον εἶναι ἱστάναι ἔμπροσθε τῶν ἐκείνου ἀναθημάτων μὴ οὐκ ὑπερβαλόμενον τοῖσι ἔργοισι. Δαρεῖον μέν νυν λέγουσι πρὸς ταῦτα συγγνώμην ποιήσασθαι. (Hdt. .. ) A long time afterwards the priest of Hephaestus did not permit Darius the Persian to place a statue in front of these, saying that he had not done deeds of the kind achieved by Sesostris the Egyptian, since Sesostris had con quered no fewer people than he and in addition the Scythians, but Darius had not been able to defeat the Scythians. Therefore it would be unjust to stand before his statues, since he had not outdone his deeds. They say Darius acknowledged his point.

Darius’ inferiority to Sesostris is here emphasised by his inability to conquer the Scythians. These Scythians are closely associated with the river Ister (both in Herodotus and Argos’ speech, A.R. .–), and it is the bridge across that river in Herodotus which stands for the neardisaster which almost overwhelms Darius, as Gobyras’ speech to the king urging immediate flight makes clear, ‘before either the Scythians go straight to the Ister and destroy the bridge or the Ionians decide to do something which will finish us off’ (πρὶν ἢ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἴστρον ἰθῦσαι Σκύθας λύσοντας τὴν γέφυραν, ἢ καί τι Ἴωσι δόξαι τὸ ἡμέας οἷον τε ἔσται ἐξεργάσασθαι, Hdt. ..). The epilogue to the Sesostris story in Herodotus (of which Apollonius clearly makes use, as we have seen) thus further modifies and explains for readers of the epic the implicit Sesostris– Alexander the Great parallel in the Argonautica, by highlighting their mutual superiority to Persian rivals, both named Darius. Darius I himself admits his inferiority to Sesostris, while Alexander (of course) defeated his namesake successor, Darius III, and succeeded him in ruling Persia, as well as conquering Egypt, the land of Sesostris himself. The historical Alexander did not conquer the Scythians, but significant too in this connection may be such traditions as that found in the Alexander 

See further pp. –, – on the Scythians in Herodotus.



Greeks and Non-Greeks

Romance (γ.. von Lauenstein) which made Alexander defeat (by means of an ambush) an enormous army of Scythians for his father Philip II of Macedon. The Argonautica’s engagement with the Herodotean Sesostris, therefore, is not an uncomplicated appropriation of an element of Herodotus’ Egyptian logos (nor is Herodotus simply a ‘source’ which Apollonius is mining for material). Rather, reading the Argonautica with Herodotus in mind (and especially the different functions Herodotus plays in the epic, as historiographical modello-codice, frequent example-model and vehicle for the exploration of interaction between Greeks and non-Greeks) and the consequent greater awareness of the significant and pervasive use of Herodotus in the epic should make us more wary of what we might call ‘Egyptianising’ views of the presentation of different aspects of the Argonautica. These include the characterisation of Aietes and the Colchians, or Jason’s behaviour after the death of Apsyrtus, where his cutting off of the extremities of the corpse has been thought to reflect the pharoah’s treatment of his enemies (A.R. .–). As we have seen, the Herodotean association of the Colchians with the Egyptians (Hdt. ..) and his version of the story of Sesostris are an important reference-point for Argos’ speech at A.R. .–. But even here it is significant that this Sesostris is in some sense de- (or pre-) Egyptianised: he goes unnamed (τινά φασι, ‘they say a man’, ) and is from a country which is not called Egypt, and whose river is not called the Nile (country and river are Eërie and Triton, –). Egypt’s name and its most identifiable feature have been removed, because he is from so long ago that even the country had not yet acquired its name. In part this plays with the traditional idea of the antiquity of the Egyptians, itself prominent in Herodotus, but it also serves to loosen the connection between this story and Egypt as a cultural and historical location in the Hellenistic period. Some other features too of Apollonius’ Colchians have been seen as closely developing Herodotus’ description of Egypt, such as the progressive inversion of nomoi the Argonauts encounter as they travel further from Greece, the clearest example of which are the Mossynoecians who do everything in public which the narrator and his audience would at home (including love-making), and keep private all that they (that is, the Greeks)   

On the Alexander Romance see in general Stoneman , Fraser : –, and on its depiction of Alexander’s relationship to Egypt, Stephens : –, Gruen : –.  E.g. by Stephens : –. On the name Eërie, see Vian : .  Cf. Hunter : . See Hdt. ., .–.

Egyptians and Otherness



would do openly (A.R. .–): ἀλλοίη δὲ δίκη καὶ θέσμια τοῖσι τέτυκται (‘their customs and laws are different’, A.R. .). These ‘inverted’ people seem strongly to recall the Herodotean description of ‘topsy-turvy’ Egypt (Hdt. ..–): τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ἔμπαλιν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ἀνθρώποισι ἐστήσαντο ἤθεά τε καὶ νόμους (‘almost all of their practices and customs are the reverse of those of other peoples’) again marked by an inversion of public and private. But close attention to Herodotean strategies more widely in the Histories, and to other important examples of Greek historiographical writing, undermines this close association and the picture of an Apollonian Colchis ‘particularized as Egyptian’. The Egyptians are not the only ‘inverted’ people in the Histories: this is a characteristic of moving towards any of the edges of the known world; things get weirder and more different. This applies both to peoples and natural phenomena. The latter are exemplified by the dog-sized gold-digging ants of India (Hdt. .), or the Arabian sheep with nine-foot long tails (Hdt. .), the former by the Scythians of the cold and barren north, whose way of life is an inversion of everything Greek (and, in a different way, of everything Egyptian): no cities (Hdt. .), few gods, no divine images or (save for Ares) altars (Hdt. .), no wise men, etc. But we also have the father-eating Issedones (Hdt. .), or the androphagoi, ‘who have no justice or law’ (οὔτε δίκην νομίζοντες οὔτε νόμῳ οὐδενὶ χρεώμενοι, Hdt. .) and eat men, or the Indians who have sex in public and ejaculate black semen (Hdt. .), or the cave-dwelling Ethiopians who eat snakes and lizards and who speak (uniquely) in batsqueaks (Hdt. ..). As the Argonauts journey towards the river Phasis on the far side of the Black Sea, they are moving towards one of the traditional edges of the world (cf. e.g. Pindar, I. .–). The Mossynoecians themselves clearly evoke as an example-model another important Greek historiographical text, Xenophon’s Anabasis, where they appear displaying much of the same behaviour:      

See Stephens :  for the view that the Mossynoecians recall Herodotus’ Egyptians. See also (e.g.) Regan : –, Thalmann : . Stephens : . Thomas : – with n. , , Redfield : –, Karttunen : –, Cusset : –. The classic treatment is (of course) Hartog . See also Thomas : – with n.  on Hdt. ..–. See Cusset : –, who describes the use and adaptation of Xenophon in Apollonius’ description of the various Black Sea peoples the Argonauts pass by and notes the difference between interaction with these people in Xenophon and its lack in Apollonius. See also Clauss :  on the use of Xenophon by Apollonius in this section.



Greeks and Non-Greeks ἐζήτουν δὲ καὶ ταῖς ἑταίραις ἃς ἦγον οἱ Ἕλληνες ἐμφανῶς ξυγγίγνεσθαι· νόμος γὰρ ἦν οὗτός σφισι. λευκοὶ δὲ πάντες οἱ ἄνδρες καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες. τούτους ἔλεγον οἱ στρατευσάμενοι βαρβαρωτάτους διελθεῖν καὶ πλεῖστον τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν νόμων κεχωρισμένους. ἔν τε γὰρ ὄχλῳ ὄντες ἐποίουν ἅπερ ἄνθρωποι ἐν ἐρημίᾳ ποιήσειαν, μόνοι τε ὄντες ὅμοια ἔπραττον ἅπερ ἂν μετ’ ἄλλων ὄντες, διελέγοντό τε αὑτοῖς καὶ ἐγέλων ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῖς καὶ ὠρχοῦντο ἐφιστάμενοι ὅπου τύχοιεν, ὥσπερ ἄλλοις ἐπιδεικνύμενοι. (Xen. An. .. ) They also wanted to have sex openly with the women whom the Greeks had brought with them as companions, since this was the custom for them. All were white, both men and women. Those who had been on the expedition said these people were the most barbarian they had passed through and the most different from Greek customs. For they did in public what men do in private, and when alone would do the same things which people do with others: they talked to themselves, laughed at themselves, danced wherever they happened to be, as if putting on a display for others.

Since the Mossynoecians are an inverted people here in Xenophon and difference from Greek norms is found widely in Herodotus, the ‘otherness’ of the Mossynoecians in Apollonius cannot be read simply as a sign of moving towards a Colchis whose own unGreek customs mean it is a disguised Egypt. The picture of the relationship between Greek and non-Greek customs and peoples is, as we have seen, much more complex in both Apollonius and Herodotus. The complexity of the relationship between Greekness and ‘otherness’ in the Histories is clearest when we consider the ethnography of one of the most prominent Greek states, Sparta, whose own similarities to non-Greeks, including Egyptians, Herodotus points out. The customs of the Spartans following the death of a king, which involve spreading the news across the land and publicly displaying grief, are shared with non-Greeks (τοῖσι βαρβάροισι τοῖσι ἐν τῇ Ἀσίῃ, ‘the barbarians in Asia’, Hdt. ..). The Spartans also have a system where sons inherit their jobs from their fathers: συμφέρονται δὲ καὶ τάδε Αἰγυπτίοισι Λακεδαιμόνιοι (‘in this the Spartans resemble the Egyptians’, Hdt. .). Otherness is not (only) ‘Egyptian’; it is found even among the Greeks.     

See pp. – above for discussion of this type of ethnographic locution (‘νόμος/θέμις for X’), as at A.R. . (οὐδέ σφιν θέμις ἦεν). See, e.g., Thomas : –, Gruen : –, –. See Cartledge : – on the Spartans as a kind of internal Greek ‘other’. See further p.  above. The kings of the Dorians, including the Spartans, are (if one goes back far enough) Egyptian (Hdt. ..).

Persians and Colchians



Persians and Colchians The picture Apollonius presents of the Colchians is complex and multidimensional. The Colchians in various ways resemble features of the Herodotean ethnographic descriptions of peoples other than the Egyptians, as we shall explore further here. In particular, there are several aspects of the Colchians as an ethnos, and Aietes as their king, which recall the depiction of the Persians in the Histories (though it is important to avoid the mistake of assuming that they ‘are’ straightforwardly or implicitly Persian, any more than they ‘are’ Egyptian). Indeed, as Jessica Priestley has demonstrated, it is in part the continuing cultural importance of the Persian Wars in the Hellenistic period which underlies Hellenistic interest in Herodotus, and this pattern can also be seen in Apollonius. The very emphasis in Apollonius on the centrality, greatness and power of Aietes resembles the descriptions of the power of the Persian Great King and the size of his empire in Herodotus. Aietes’ own power is expressed by his personal military prowess, which is said to be a match for Ares (A.R. .–, by Argos) and none of the Argonauts can withstand his spear (save for Heracles, A.R. .–). This might in combat is appropriate for an epic warrior, but though the historical Persian king’s own military abilities might be lesser, his power is in a sense greater: it is able even to alter the landscape of his empire, as when we learn of the Asian plateau whose rivers the king has dammed to create a lake (Hdt. .). And Persian imperial ambitions can also rival those of the gods, as is clear at the beginning of Herodotus book , when Xerxes outlines his vision of the extent of his realm after defeating the Athenians and other Greeks: γῆν τὴν Περσίδα ἀποδέξομεν τῷ Διὸς αἰθέρι ὁμουρέουσαν. οὐ γὰρ δὴ χώρην γε οὐδεμίαν κατόψεται ἥλιος ὁμουρἐουσαν τῇ ἡμετέρῃ, ἀλλὰ σφέας πάσας ἐγὼ ἅμα ὑμῖν χώρην θήσω, διὰ πάσης διεξελθὼν τῆς Εὐρώπης (‘we will show Persian land to border on Zeus’ heaven, since the sun will not look down on any land bordering our own, but together with you I shall make all their territories one land, marching through all of Europe’, Hdt. .γ.–). In the Argonautica another epic image underlines Aietes’ superiority to his people:    

In general on Persians in the Greek imaginary, see Gruen : –. See Priestley : – and on Hellenistic assimilation of different peoples to the Persians : –. See further on this pp. – above. See in general on this passage Fränkel : , Hunter : –.



Greeks and Non-Greeks οἷος δ’ Ἴσθμιον εἶσι Ποσειδάων ἐς ἀγῶνα ἅρμασιν ἐμβεβαώς, ἢ Ταίναρον, ἢ ὅ γε Λέρνης ὕδωρ, ἠὲ κατ’ ἄλσος Ὑαντίου Ὀγχηστοῖο, καί τε Καλαύρειαν μετὰ δὴ θαμὰ νίσσεται ἵπποις, Πέτρην θ’ Αἱμονίην, ἢ δενδρήεντα Γεραιστόν· τοῖος ἄρ’ Αἰήτης Κόλχων ἀγὸς ἦεν ἰδέσθαι. (A.R. . )

As Poseidon is when he goes to the Isthmian contest, borne on his chariot, or Taenarum, or Lerna’s water, or to the grove of Hyantian Onchestus, and often travels to Calaureia with his horses, and Haemonian Petra, or woody Geraestus, so was Aietes, king of the Colchians, to behold.

The Persian king is in a similar exalted and singular position within his empire, which is directed at providing for him: βασιλέι τῷ μεγάλῳ ἐς τροφὴν αὐτοῦ τε καὶ τῆς στρατιῆς διαραίρηται, πάρεξ τοῦ φόρου, γῆ πᾶσα ὅσης ἄρχει (‘All of the land which the Great King rules is divided up to feed him and his army, quite apart from the payment of tribute’, Hdt. ..). Deioces, the first of the Median royal antecedents of the Persian king, is careful to ensure his separate, high status by means of protocol (his royal residence is separate from the people, no one can enter the king’s presence, no one can laugh or spit in his presence, etc., Hdt. .), while Persians must pray not only for their own prosperity but for that of their king and the people (Hdt. ..). In the constitutional debate the Persians conduct after the defeat of the revolt of the Magi, Darius argues that monarchy is the best system, if the monarch is the best, in part because ‘he can best keep quiet about plans against enemies’ (Hdt. ..), and because a monarch freed the Persians and as such forms part of their ancestral nomoi (Hdt. ..), thus establishing the affinity of Persians to this form of government. The regal superiority Aietes assumes over the Argonauts in his statements about the superior and inferior man also have the air of a ‘natural’ ruler: δὴ γὰρ ἀεικὲς | ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθὸν γεγαῶτα κακωτέρῳ ἀνέρι εἶξαι (‘Since it would be unseemly for a noble man to yield to an inferior’, A.R. .–; ὄφρα καὶ ἄλλος | ἀνὴρ ἐρρίγῃσιν ἀρείονα φῶτα μετελθεῖν, ‘so that another man should shudder to come against a better man’, A.R. .–). A similar attitude is demonstrated by Cyrus the Great as a boy, when still assumed to be the son of a herdsman. He is made ‘king’ in a childish game, and gives royal commands to his playmates, one of whom disobeys, and is therefore ordered by Cyrus to be thrashed (Hdt. ..), 

See on Herodotus’ picture of Persian kingship Munson : esp. –.

Persians and Colchians



even though he is the son of a leading Mede, and Cyrus a lowly herdsman’s son. When confronted by the Median king himself, Astyages, Cyrus justifies his actions: ‘in play they made me their king, since I seemed to them to be well-suited to it. The other children carried out their orders, but this one disobeyed and paid me no heed, until he received his punishment’ (παίζοντες σφέων αὐτῶν ἐστήσαντο βασιλέα· ἐδόκεον γὰρ σφι εἶναι ἐς τοῦτο ἐπιτηδεότατος. οἱ μέν νυν ἄλλοι παῖδες τὰ ἐπιτασσόμενα ἐπετέλεον, οὗτος δὲ ἀνηκούστεέ τε καὶ λόγον εἶχε οὐδένα, ἐς ὃ ἔλαβὲ τὴν δίκην, Hdt. ..–). It is this natural ability as a ruler, and his attitude of a superior, which alerts Astyages to Cyrus’ true identity (Hdt. .). Aietes’ power recalls Persian kings in other ways too. The danger Aietes presents to others is clear in the plans he makes for the destruction of the Argonauts after the failure he anticipates for Jason: he will burn their ship along with its crew ‘so that those plotting crimes would sputter out their woeful insolence’ (ὄφρ’ ἀλεγεινὴν | ὕβριν ἀποφλύξωσιν ὑπέρβια μηχανόωντες, A.R. .–). He will also make the sons of Phrixus ‘pay a fitting retribution’ (ἐοικότα μείλια τίσειν | υἱῆας Φρίξοιο, A.R. .–) for coming back with the Argonauts, whom he thinks are determined to usurp him: ὄφρα ἑ τιμῆς | καὶ σκήπτρων ἐλάσειαν ἀκηδέες (‘so that pitilessly they would drive him from his honour and his sceptre’, A.R. .–). Here he is acting in a manner reminiscent of the violent, threatened kings of Herodotus, such as Astyages, who fears a usurper from among his own family, because of a dream which the Magi interpret as meaning his daughter’s son will rule in his stead (Hdt. ..). This leads Astyages to command Harpagus to kill Astyages’ own grandson, the baby Cyrus (Hdt. .) and later (in vengeance for Harpagus’ failure to kill Cyrus) to kill and dismember Harpagus’ son and serve him up as a meal for his father (Hdt. .). Aietes, too, is worried about a palace coup: he has been warned in an oracle about the πυκινόν τε δόλον βουλάς τε γενέθλης | σφωιτέρης ἄτην τε πολύτροπον (‘cunning deceit and plots and wily destruction of his own family’, A.R. .–). Aietes is even more bent on violence and revenge after Jason has completed his tasks and 

 

See on the presentation of Aietes Hunter :  on A.R. .– (‘ruthless tyrant’) and Vian : – (‘oriental despot’), with the important qualifications of Hunter : , Williams , Bettenworth . This has Greek parallels too, of course, e.g. in the Atreus–Thyestes myth. See Asheri et al. : –. Compare also the homicidal behaviour of Cambyses against his brother Smerdis (Hdt. .), whom he kills after a dream in which he hears that Smerdis is on his throne.



Greeks and Non-Greeks

gained the fleece, so that he ‘threatened terrible things for all the people’ (δεινὰ δὲ παντὶ . . . ἤπυε λαῷ, A.R. .) unless they bring him back his daughter, such is his desire for retribution: καὶ θυμὸν ἐνιπλήσει μενεαίνων τίσασθαι τάδε πάντα, δαήσονται κεφαλῇσιν πάντα χόλον καὶ πᾶσαν ἑὴν ὑποδέγμενοι ἄτην.

(A.R. . )

and he could sate his anger eager as he was to avenge all these things, so they would discover with their lives all his anger and receive in turn all his bewilderment.

At this point Aietes’ response is to bring all the military force of his kingdom to bear on the pursuit of the Argonauts, and the description of the enormous size of the Colchian forces is another strong reminder of the Persians of the Histories: αὐτῷ δ’ ἐνὶ ἤματι Κόλχοι νῆάς τ’ εἰρύσσαντο, καὶ ἄρμενα νηυσὶ βάλοντο, αὐτῷ δ’ ἤματι πόντον ἀνήιον· οὐδέ κε φαίης τόσσον νηίτην στόλον ἔμμεναι, ἀλλ’ οἰωνῶν ἰλαδὸν ἄσπετον ἔθνος ἐπιβρομέειν πελάγεσσιν.

(A.R. . )

On that very day the Colchians launched their ships and stowed their gear on the ships and on that very day sailed out on the sea. You would not think so many were a fleet of ships, but that a numberless tribe of birds was roaring on the seas in flocks.

This recalls in particular, as a key example-model, the vastness of the forces sent against Greece by Xerxes, which Herodotus tells us are the greatest ever to have been assembled, outdoing even the forces Darius sent against the Scythians, and the armies of Greeks in the Trojan War (Hdt. ..):

 



Fränkel :  (followed by Livrea :  ad loc.) draws attention to the characterisation here of Aietes as a powerful, ‘oriental’ despot. The great number of the Colchian people is regularly drawn attention to in the Argonautica: see A.R. ., ., ., .– (as numerous as the waves of the sea or the leaves in a forest; ‘Who could count them?’, .), .–, ., .–. This recalls a number of different groups of non-Greeks in the Histories such as the Indians, the most numerous people in the world (Hdt. ..) and the Thracians, who are the most numerous after the Indians, Hdt. ..). Cf. Fränkel : , for whom Aietes’ ready fleet characterises ‘das straffe Regiment des orientalischen Despoten Aietes’.

Persians and Colchians



αὗται αἱ πᾶσαι οὐδ’ εἰ ἕτεραι πρὸς ταύτῃσι προσγενόμεναι στρατηλασίαι μιῆς τῆσδε οὐκ ἄξιαι. τί γὰρ οὐκ ἤγαγε ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίης ἔθνος ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα Ξέρξης; (Hdt. ..) All of these armies, not even if others were added to them, would equal the expeditionary force of this one army. For which people from Asia did he not lead against Greece?

The size of Aietes’ στόλος (‘force’, A.R. .) is such that an observer would think it instead a vast flock of birds, while Xerxes’ is the largest such στόλος (Hdt. ..) ever known. Both are directed against Greeks and it is envisaged by other characters in the Argonautica that Aietes even has the ability to send his forces to Greece itself, in the manner of Darius or Xerxes: τάχα δ’ εἶσι καὶ Ἑλλάδος ἤθεα γαίης | τισόμενος φόνον υἷος (‘Swiftly he will go even to the cities of the land of Hellas to avenge the killing of his son’, A.R. .–, Circe). Alcinous describes Aietes in similar terms to Arete (A.R. .), when he also describes him as being the most kingly of rulers, another strong echo of the Great King (οὐ γάρ τις βασιλεύτερος Αἰήταο, ‘no one is more kingly that Aietes’, A.R. .). The great power and long reach of Xerxes, for example, is emphasised in one of the most famous passages of the Histories, when Alexander of Macedon is attempting to detach the Athenians from the alliance (δύναμις ὑπὲρ ἄνθρωπων ἡ βασιλέος ἐστὶ καὶ χεὶρ ὑπερμήκης, ‘the power of the king is beyond men’s and his arm is long’, Hdt. .β.). And the Great King and Aietes even share a common enemy (in addition to Greeks), the Sauromatae (μέγα δυσμενέοντας, ‘great enemies’, A.R. .), against whom Argos says the Argonauts will help Aietes. The Sauromatae are not traditional enemies of the Colchians, but they are prominent in Herodotus book  as well as being enemies of the Persians, being closely associated with the Scythians against whom Darius fights an unsuccessful campaign in Herodotus. The Sauromatae are descended from Scythians and Amazons, and Herodotus devotes considerable space to the account of their origins during his narrative of Darius’ Scythian expedition. They determine to fight on the side of the Scythians against the Persians (Hdt. ..). Their presence in the Argonautica is a cue for readers to compare some aspects of the the Colchians with the    

 See Mori a:  and pp. – above. This is echoed by Jason, A.R. .–. See Mooney  ad A.R. ., Hunter : . See further on the Sauromatae Vian : . Hdt. .–. See also the reinforcement of a Scythian detachment by Sauromatae in Hdt. .. and the progress of the Persians through ‘Scythian and Sauromatian territory’ (διὰ τῆς Σκυθικῆς καὶ τῆς Σαυρομάτιδος χώρης) in Hdt. ...



Greeks and Non-Greeks

Persians of the Histories, though such comparison does not entail one-toone identification or representation, as we have seen. It is, moreover, not only the Colchians who resemble Persians in Apollonius: the depiction of the characteristics of individual and wider ethnic groups in the Argonautica is more complex. The treatment of Apsyrtus’ corpse by Jason also resembles the actions of certain Persians, when viewed from a Herodotean perspective: ἥρως δ’ Αἰσονίδης ἐξάργματα τάμνε θανόντος, τρὶς δ’ ἀπέλειξε φόνου, τρὶς δ’ ἐξ ἄγος ἔπτυσ’ ὀδόντων . . .

(A.R. . )

The hero son of Aeson cut off the dead man’s extremities, three times licked off the blood, and three times spat out the pollution from his teeth . . .

This act has been likened to the cutting off of the extremities of defeated enemies by Egyptians, but there are a number of Persian analogues also, such as the mutilation of the corpse of Leonidas by Xerxes. When Xerxes learns it is the body of the Spartans’ king he orders his head to be cut off and stuck on a pole (Hdt. ..). Though Herodotus marks this as unusual for a Persian with regard to the treatment of brave enemies, mutilations of the body are in fact not uncommon on the part of Persians in the Histories. Cambyses, for example, orders the corpse of the pharaoh Amasis to be brought outside and mistreated (Hdt. ..–): it is whipped, its hair pulled out and it is stabbed, but since it is mummified it resists disintegration, which leads to Cambyses having it burnt. This act too is marked by the narrator as contrary to customary behaviour (cremation being, according to Herodotus, forbidden in both Persia and Egypt, Hdt. ..). Jason’s murder too, we might note, is a transgressive one and leads (after Jason’s own unsuccessful attempts at expiation described above) to the anger of Zeus (as the narrator surmises at A.R. .–) and purification at the hands of Circe (A.R. .–).   



For tragic analogues for this behaviour, see Hunter : –. Stephens : –. See also Stephens :  for enemies of the pharaoh reflecting the divine cosmic enemy in Egyptian thought. On Persian mutilations (esp. of the body) see Munson :  n. , Hollmann : –, : – and in general on mutilations in Herodotus see Hartog : –. There are also Seleucid parallels for such mutilation: see Ma : , :  on the mutilations carried out by Antiochus III, who slices off the ears and nose and decapitates his usurper cousin Achaeus, which Ma views as a development of Near Eastern imperial practice. Cf. also the mutilation of Bessus (by cutting off of ears and nose) by Alexander the Great, acting qua Persian Great King (Arrian, An..) with Bosworth : – and note also Darius cuts off the nose, ears and tongue of the rebel Phraortes (Behistun inscription, col. .; see Flower & Marincola : ).

Persians and Colchians



Most prominent of all within the Histories, since it comes at its very close, is the mutilation of Masistes’ wife by Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, who suspects her of being behind her husband’s infatuation with Artaynte: τούς τε μαζοὺς ἀποταμοῦσα κυσὶ προέβαλε καὶ ῥῖνα καὶ ὦτα καὶ χείλεα καὶ γλῶσσαν ἐκταμοῦσα. (Hdt. .) She cut off her breasts and cast them to the dogs and chopped off her nose and ears and lips and tongue.

This action is not taken on a corpse, as is Jason’s, but it is perpetrated on a family member, as in the case of Apsyrtus, killed by his sister and future brother-in-law: Masistes is the brother of Xerxes, and his wife is the mother-in-law of Xerxes’ son, Darius. Within the Argonautica Jason’s act in part assimilates Jason to Aietes himself, since he asserts he would have dismembered the Argonauts, had they not shared his table (A.R. .–), and expects the bulls to dismember Jason (A.R. .–). But his transgressive act of murder and mutilation also recalls the violence and cruelty of Herodotean kings, especially Persian ones. Such acts are not simply a feature of one ethnic group, however, whether Egyptian or Persian; rather they are a sign of monarchical power and its excesses, as we will explore more fully in Chapter . We have already touched above on Xerxes’ attack on Greece: the route of Xerxes’ forces in Herodotus is another clear point of contact with the Argonautica, and also needs to be taken into account when thinking about the portrayal of the interaction between Greeks and non-Greeks. In this aspect too we find a clear interest in Apollonius in Herodotean beginnings, placed in a prominent position within the Argonautica, as well as in Herodotean locations, patterns which we have already observed above. At the beginning of the epic, in the Catalogue of Argonauts, Orpheus’ great power is exemplified by his ability to charm even trees, such as the oaks which he led down from Pieria and still stand flourishing at Thracian Zone (A.R. .). This is (as we have seen) the first place in Europe Xerxes lands (Hdt. .), which he chooses as the place where he will review his forces, thus allowing Herodotus himself to include his own catalogue (Hdt. .–), which itself looks to and outdoes the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships (and the corresponding catalogue of Trojans) in Iliad , since it details (as we have seen) a force greater than any other assembled, including   

 See Flower & Marincola : . See Stephens : . See Munson :  n. ,  n.  and pp. – below.  See also pp. –, – above. See Pearson : .



Greeks and Non-Greeks

that of the sons of Atreus against Troy (Hdt. ..). Herodotus also engages with the Odyssey here, since he notes that this coastline ‘was of old the territory of the Cicones’ (ὁ δὲ χῶρος οὗτος τὸ παλαιὸν ἦν Κικόνων, Hdt. ..), which was the first place visited by Odysseus in his Wanderings (Od. .–). In Apollonius’ own epic set-piece, the Catalogue which strongly recalls several features of historiographical discourse, at the start of the poem, he therefore gestures towards Herodotus’ historiographical engagement with epic and accordingly uses historiography as part of his marking out of his epic’s own modifications of Archaic epic. When the Argonauts begin their journey, the first part of it – from Pagasae past the southern tip of the Magnesian peninsula and along the Magnesian coast to Meliboea (A.R. .–) – develops part of the final stages of the progress of Xerxes’ fleet in the run-up to Artemisium (Hdt. .–), which passes over precisely the same locations: the Argonauts sail past Sepias and Sciathos (A.R. .–), land at Aphetae (A.R. .–, ), and finally at Meliboea (A.R. .–), while the Persians land near Sepias (Hdt. ..), with others near Sciathos (Hdt. ..), and lose ships at Sepias and Meliboea (Hdt. ..), finally landing at Aphetae (Hdt. ..). James Clauss has explored in some detail how both Persians and Argonauts are affected by winds (A.R. ., Hdt. ..–; several Persian ships are destroyed), which delay their progress (the Argonauts by two days, A.R. .–, the Persians by three, Hdt. ..); both make propitiatory offerings (ἔντομα, A.R. ., ἔντομά τε ποιεῦντες, Hdt. ..), the Argonauts to the local hero Dolops (A.R. .), the Persians to the winds and Thetis (Hdt. ..), while both Apollonius and Herodotus offer etymologies for the name Aphetae: ἀτὰρ τριτάτῳ προέηκαν νῆα, τανυσσάμενοι περιώσιον ὑψόθι λαῖφος. τὴν δ’ ἀκτὴν Ἀφέτας Ἀργοῦς ἔτι κικλήσκουσιν.

(A.R. . )

   



  See further Priestley : . Pearson : . See pp. – above. For such ‘triangulation’ see pp. – above. See Delage : –, Vian : –, Livrea , Clauss : , –, Priestley : –. The geography of Magnesia seems confused in the Apollonian text as transmitted, since Sciathos and Sepias appear before Aphetae, which is normally placed at the southern tip of Magnesia and therefore earlier on their route (see Vian , Livrea ). It may be preferable to follow Livrea (and Clauss) in transposing A.R. .– to after A.R. ., but the Herodotean intertext is clear even without such a transposition.  Priestley : . Clauss : . See also Vian :  on Aphetae.

Persians and Colchians



But on the third day they launched the ship, stretching out the huge sail on high. And they still call that coast ‘Setting Forth of the Argo’. ἔνθα λέγεται τὸν Ἡρακλέα καταλειφθῆναι ὑπὸ Ἰήσονός τε καὶ τῶν συνε ταίρων ἐκ τῆς Ἀργοῦς ἐπ’ ὕδωρ πεμφθέντα, εὖτ’ ἐπὶ τὸ κῶας ἔπλεον ἐς Αἶαν τὴν Κολχίδα· ἐνθεῦτεν γὰρ ἔμελλον ὑδρευσάμενοι ἐς τὸ πέλαγος ἀφήσειν, ἐπὶ τούτου δὲ τῷ χώρῳ οὔνομα γέγονε Ἀφέται. (Hdt. ..) Here it is said Heracles was left behind by Jason and his companions on the Argo having been sent for water, when they were sailing after the fleece to Colchian Aea. They were intending to set forth onto the sea when they had collected water. Because of this the place has the name ‘Setting Forth’.

Though Heracles is not abandoned at Aphetae in the Argonautica (but in Cius, A.R. .–), the etymologies proposed are fundamentally the same: Aphetae (‘Setting Forth’, ‘Departure’) gets its name from the departure thence of the Argo. Clauss suggests that the echoes of Herodotus here are in part explained by an allusion in Apollonius to unhappy Thetis as a reason for the delay to the Argonauts, since Thetis is herself mentioned by Herodotus in the corresponding section, with a reference to her rape by Peleus (Hdt. ..), which the Ionians tell the Persians occurred at Sepias, and the Persians accordingly propitiate her in an attempt to placate the winds. Apollonius, Clauss suggests, also has the unhappy Thetis (now separated from Peleus) in mind, since he underlines that Achilles is in the care of Chiron, not Thetis, as Peleus ventures forth (A.R. .–). However, we should also call to mind another section of the Herodotean episode which offers another explanation for the winds which hinder the Persians. Herodotus mentions a story that the Athenians sacrificed and prayed to Boreas and his Athenian wife, Oreithyia ‘to help them and wreck the ships of the barbarians, as before off Athos’ (τιμωρῆσαι σφίσι καὶ διαφθεῖραι τῶν βαρβάρων τὰς νέας, ὡς καὶ πρότερον περὶ Ἄθων, Hdt. ..). Boreas and Oreithyia are, of course, the parents of two of the Argonauts, the Boreads Zetes and Calaïs. The Boreads are prominent in the Catalogue of Argonauts, which (as we have seen) already engages with Xerxes’ progress in Herodotus at its start (with Orpheus): in fact the Boreads come at the end of the Catalogue, where their genealogy is given and both parents mentioned by name (A.R. .–). They are also prominent in the version of the abandonment of Heracles (also mentioned by Herodotus) found in the Argonautica: we are told that they prevent the



Fowler : , Priestley : .



Greeks and Non-Greeks

return of the Argonauts to search for him, which leads to their future death at his hands (A.R. .–). Apollonius is developing here a section of Herodotus which is itself full of Argonautic material. In Hdt. . we learn that the locals in Alus (near Mt Othrys) entertain Xerxes with a local story about Athamas, Phrixus and Phrixus’ descendants. The eldest of these descendants must avoid the local ‘town hall’ (πρυτανήιον) and can only leave by being sacrificed (Hdt. ..). It is in fact the descendants of Phrixus’ son Cytissorus who suffer in this way, for the following reason: διότι καθαρμὸν τῆς χώρης ποιευμένων Ἀχαιῶν ἐκ θεοπροπίου Ἀθάμαντα τὸν Αἰόλου καὶ μελλόντων μιν θύειν ἀπικόμενος οὗτος ὁ Κυτίσσωρος ἐξ Αἴης τῆς Κολχίδος ἐρρύσατο, ποιήσας δὲ τοῦτο τοῖσι ἐπιγενομένοισι ἐξ ἑωυτοῦ μῆνιν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνέβαλε. (Hdt. ..) Because when the Achaeans were making Athamas a scapegoat for their territory because of an oracle and were about to sacrifice him, this Cytis sorus arrived from Aea in Colchis and rescued him, and having done this cast the wrath of the god onto his own descendants.

Cytissorus is also one of the sons of Phrixus encountered by the Argonauts in Apollonius (A.R. .), and his journey from Colchis to Greece is a reminder of the various movements between East and West which parallel both the Argonauts’ expedition and that of Xerxes. The sons of Phrixus in the Argonautica fail to complete their attempted journey from Aea to Boeotian Orchomenus, but the Colchians who pursue the Argonauts double their voyage in two ways, since one group reverses the Argonauts’ path to Colchis (through the Bosporus and Hellespont into the Mediterranean, A.R. .–, thus themselves echoing the progress of Xerxes), and the other follows a route very similar to the Argonauts’ return via the Ister into the Adriatic, but managing to overtake them (A.R. .–). These parallel journeys serve in part to draw attention to the similarities between the Argonauts, the Colchians and the Persians, but it is also important to note the differences. The Argonauts’ quest involves one ship, whereas the Colchian and Persian journeys involve a great many vessels and (crucially) only the Argonauts’ voyages are successful, since they gain the fleece and manage to complete their nostos. The parallel journeys,   

On Herodotus’ version of this story and his possible sources see Fowler : –. The size of the pursuing Colchian force also echoes Xerxes: see pp. – above. The sons of Phrixus travelled on one ship, but that (vastly inferior to the Argo) was destroyed (A.R. .).

Persians and Colchians



including Xerxes’, end in failure, defeat or non-return. It is this difference which the use of Herodotus as an example-model by Apollonius underlines in particular in this instance: the winds off Magnesia at the beginning of the Argonautic voyage are not harmful, but those that afflict the Persian fleet at the end of its voyage are hugely destructive. Herodotus reports a conservative estimate of the Persian ships lost as being four hundred (Hdt. ..), which must have played a significant role at the sea-battles of Artemisium and Salamis. There is a final echo of the Herodotean description of the defeat of the Persians at the end of the Argonautic nostos at the end of Argonautica book : no ἀνέμων ἐριῶλαι (‘blasts of wind’, A.R. .) hinder the Argonauts in their calm progress from Aegina past Attica and Euboea, and Locris to Pagasae (A.R. .–), but the same waters between Artemisium and Salamis mean final defeat for Xerxes’ fleet. But though in this case it is difference between Greeks and non-Greeks which is emphasised, we should not make the mistake of regarding the Colchians as representing or standing for the historical Persians of the fifth or fourth centuries, any more than they represent the Egyptians of the Ptolemaic period. The Argonautica’s Colchians exist in a different narrative universe, of course, but they are also very different in several key nomoi, such as their treatment of the dead (A.R. .–), while Colchians such as Medea and Apsyrtus are willing to employ deceit in a manner which is described as fundamentally unPersian by Herodotus (αἴσχιστον δὲ αὐτοῖσι τὸ ψεύδεσθαι νενόμισται, ‘They think the most disgraceful thing is telling lies’, Hdt. ..), though Persian practice (as opposed to theory) is not always so noble. And furthermore Jason in particular often acts in ways which resemble the non-Greeks both of the Argonautica and Herodotus, as we will see in the next chapter. Apollonius employs Herodotean example-models (at least in part) to underline the difficulty of

  

 

The Colchians who pursue the Argonauts are either killed (A.R. .–) or settle lands far from Colchis (A.R. .–). Xerxes loses more ships in a storm off Euboea before Artemisium (Hdt. .), and more ships in the battle itself (Hdt. .), before the disaster at Salamis (Hdt. .–). The Colchians hang male corpses from trees, allowing neither cremation nor burial, though they bury women. The Persians expose male corpses to the attacks of birds and dogs before covering them in wax and burying them (Hdt. ..–). For Colchian deceptions see pp. – above. E.g. the rebellion of the Magi by means of the false Smerdis (Hdt. .) or the trick Darius uses to become king (Hdt. .–), by ensuring his horse whinnies first. Both of these deceptions are carried out to obtain royal power: its corrupting influence we will explore in the next chapter.



Greeks and Non-Greeks

any easy opposition between Greeks and non-Greeks and follows Herodotus’ own complication of ethnic stereotypes.

Conclusion The importance of Herodotus for Apollonius is shown by the pervasive and extensive use of aspects of particular descriptions of peoples in Herodotus (especially the Egyptians and Persians) by Apollonius in his characterisations of different individuals and peoples, both Greek and nonGreek, in the Argonautica. This forms a further example of the use in the epic of sections of Herodotus as a particular modello-esemplare, which in turn reinforces (and is reinforced by) the role Herodotus also plays as a historiographical modello-codice, not least for ethnographic discourse and descriptions. We have also seen that Apollonius’ depiction of different ethnic groups is complex and sophisticated and cannot be reduced to the straightforward identification of any one group with any historical group or ethnos (whether in Herodotus or the Hellenistic world). In this complexity and the absence of simplistic portrayals of particular peoples or individuals as positive or negative, Apollonius is also reflecting and building on Herodotus. This has consequences for Egyptianising readings of Apollonius: the Argonautica presents a far more complex picture of the relationship between the peoples its world is populated by and that of the Hellenistic Mediterranean of Apollonius’ day than is sometimes implied. Here too the differences between the epic and a shorter, simpler ktisis-poem are made clear. While Apollonius appears to have used the story of drops of Gorgon’s blood creating venomous creatures in Libya as part of his poem on the foundation of Alexandria (CA fr. ), possibly in connection with the death of Canobus, helmsman of Menelaus, who gave his name to a branch of the Nile Delta, when the same aetion appears in the Argonautica, as explaining the origin of the snake which kills Mopsus in Libya (A.R. .–), it is stripped of any connection with Egypt or Alexandria (A.R. .–). Here, as in the story of the foundation of Thera in the epic, the Argonautica pointedly preserves (as the ktisis-poem probably did not) a significant and irreducible gap for its readers between the mythological narrative of the poem and the historical realities of the Hellenistic world.  

As told in Apollonius’ choliambic Canobus (CA fr. ). Cf. Sistakou : – and see pp. – above. Stephens : – discusses Apollonius’ use of Canobus as part of his writing of a ‘conceptual map’ of Alexandria, but it is important to note that this takes place outside the epic Argonautica.

 

Kings and Leaders

Introduction One of the most important features of the political organisation of the Hellenistic period was the division of an expanded Greek world into a number of large, powerful states ruled over by kings. This was a major change as compared with fifth-century Greece, where monarchy was either foreign (most notably in the shape of βασιλεύς, the King, i.e. the king of Persia) or peripheral to the core of classical Greek city-states, to be found on the margins of the Greek world in such places as Sicily, Cyrene or Cyprus. The situation had already begun to change in the fourth century, with the rise of the Macedonian monarchy under Philip II and then Alexander, but the place and justification of kingship within Greek culture remained a focus for Greek thinking well into the Hellenistic period, in large part because the much greater size and much broader cultural and ethnic diversity of most of the Hellenistic kingdoms meant the relationship of kingship to notions of Greek identity was complex and itself underwent substantial change. This chapter examines in particular the portrayal of kings and leaders in the Argonautica to determine the degree to which we should see it as playing a role in justifying or promoting the notion of Hellenistic kingship, especially by providing exemplars or models for Hellenistic kings, royal practices or institutions. As such it follows directly    



For Bilde et al. : , ‘Kingship was perhaps the most important single institution in the Hellenistic period.’ Cf. e.g. Hdt. .. See in general on the development of Hellenistic monarchies Walbank : –, : –. On the ‘disconcerting phenomenon’ of Hellenistic kingship for much of the Greek world, see Walbank :  and see further on its transformative effect on the Hellenistic world Shipley : –. On the Hellenistic monarchies as ‘experiments in kingship’ and active sites for the exploration of different theoretical and practical approaches to the notion of kingship, see Stephens : –. On the need to create new royal ideology and ritual for the novel Hellenistic monarchies, see Murray : .





Kings and Leaders

from the consideration in the previous chapter of the consequences of the interaction with Herodotus (and historiography more broadly) for readings situating the epic within its socio-political context. We shall begin by reviewing briefly the main aspects of Hellenistic kingship ideology, in order to reconstruct part of the horizon of expectations of a Hellenistic reader of the Argonautica, before moving on to survey the reflections of Hellenistic royal practice and ideology that we can discern in the poem and the implications of these for the notion of the epic’s kings and leaders as exemplary. I argue that the pervasive complicating of these characters, especially through intertextual engagement with negative depictions of monarchy, in particular in Herodotus, means we should not regard them as providing potential straightforward models for Hellenistic kingship, or as straightforwardly promoting elements of Ptolemaic royal ideology, even where its practices and patterns are evoked by Apollonius.

Hellenistic Kings and Kingship Ideology Despite the heterogeneous character of the various Hellenistic kingdoms, most of which contained different cultural and ethnic groups and combined different traditions about the proper form of government for its constituent peoples, it is possible to reconstruct a reasonably coherent picture of the general associations of monarchy from an intellectual perspective in the Hellenistic period, and in particular of the qualities seen as appropriate for an ideal king, as part of a wider justification for the prominence and power of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The surviving sources for this picture include the Letter of Aristeas, the description of Egyptian kingship in Diodorus Siculus and Musonius Rufus’ On Why a King Should Study Philosophy, but there was clearly a much wider range of

 





On the variety to be found across the different Hellenistic monarchies, see e.g. Gruen : , Ma : . Hellenistic kings could also, of course, promote particular images of themselves and their reigns in other ways: for the evidence for the use of cult and iconography see Shipley : –, for coins see e.g. Fleischer , and more generally on the importance of portraiture Smith  and Stewart . On the Letter of Aristeas, see Murray , Bertelli : – and most recently Wright . On its authorship and date, see Murray : –, Wright : –. A date at some point in the second century  seems likely, despite the third-century setting. Diod. Sic. ..–.. on Egypt (BNJ  F). Diodorus’ source for this account is usually thought to have been Hecataeus of Abdera; see Lang in BNJ ad loc. On the description of Egyptian kingship in Hecataeus of Abdera see Murray , Bertelli : –, Stephens : –. On Hecataeus as responding to Herodotus see pp. – above.

Hellenistic Kings and Kingship Ideology



texts on kingship in the Hellenistic period, itself evidence of the importance of such intellectual justifications for monarchy, with roots in fourth-century philosophical exploration of the merits of kingship (such as Isocrates’ Nicocles) and beyond that in the picture of kings (and their merits) in earlier Greek literature, such as Homer and Hesiod. We shall explore the constitutional debate in Herodotus book  more fully in the next section, but it too will have formed part of the intellectual background for the explicit development of defences of kingship in the Hellenistic period, since it contains a clear justification for monarchy, albeit as appropriate for Persians rather than Greeks. The final question which Ptolemy Philadelphus puts to the Jewish sages in the Letter of Aristeas () concerns what the greatest element of kingship is (τί μέγιστόν ἐστι βασιλείας;), to which the reply is that the king’s subjects should enjoy continual peace and swift justice (τὸ διαπαντὸς ἐν εἰρήνῃ καθεστάναι τοὺς ὑποτεταγμένους, καὶ κομίζεσθαι τὸ δικαίον ταχέως ἐν ταῖς διακρίσεσι, ), two of the key benefits a good king should confer across Hellenistic thinking about kingship. The circumstances accounting for peace and justice according to Philadelphus’ interlocutor are also revealing: it is when the ruler himself hates evil, loves good and values human life (ταῦτα δὲ γίνεται διὰ τὸν ἡγούμενον, ὅταν μισοπόνηρος ᾖ καὶ φιλάγαθος καὶ περὶ πολλοῦ ποιούμενος ψυχὴν ἀνθρώπου σώζειν, ), which is then illustrated by the specific example of Philadelphus himself, ‘since God has given you a pure mind unmixed with any evil’ (τοῦ θεοῦ σοι διδόντος ἔχειν ἁγνὴν καὶ ἀμιγῆ παντὸς κακοῦ τὴν διάνοιαν, ). This makes the virtues of the king himself the wellspring of the most important elements of kingship and the identification of the virtue of the king as the main justification for kingship is widespread in Hellenistic theorising about kingship (as also in its fourth-century    



See for the various lost works Περὶ βασιλείας Walbank : –, Bertelli : –, Murray : –. See in general for the main outlines of Hellenistic kingship ideology Walbank : –, Murray : –. On the fourth-century roots of Hellenistic kingship ideology, see Walbank : –, Bertelli : –, Murray : –. Cf. e.g. with Bulloch :  Il. .–, Thuc. . on proper rulership and power, and Od. .– on the flourishing of a people under a βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος (‘noble king’, ), marked by his upholding of εὐδικίας (‘justice’, ) and acting ἐξ εὐηγεσίης (‘from fair treatment’, ), for which see also the implied connection between justice and fruitfulness in Pindar’s description of Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse, θεμιστεῖον ὃς ἀμφέπει σκᾶπτον ἐν πολυμάλῳ | Σικελίᾳ (‘who wields his just sceptre in flock-rich Sicily’, O. .–). Cf. e.g. Letter of Aristeas , , Isoc. Ad Nic. .–, Nic. .–, Mus. Ruf. , .– Hense. See Walbank : –.



Kings and Leaders

antecedents). Kingship requires the greatest wisdom and virtue, in particular self-control of one’s desires, so that the king should be perfect in virtue, and so be just and benefit his subjects. The centrality of the king’s virtue is in part a result of the conception of kingship as unfettered, unaccountable rule, which required the king himself to exercise selfcontrol, in the absence of an external authority. In general terms this conception of the ideal king and the necessity of his virtue as guaranteeing his benefactions to his subjects despite his great power is reflected in poems produced in the Hellenistic kingdoms with an explicit encomiastic function, such as Theocritus , the encomium for Ptolemy Philadelphus. In that poem Philadelphus is characterised as the ‘most excellent of men’ (προφερέστατος ἀνδρῶν, v. ), who enjoys countless blessings (vv. –), plentiful prosperity (ὄλβος, v. ) and wide rule over sea and land (vv. , –). He is also a powerful ‘spearman’ (ἐπιστάμενος δόρυ πάλλειν, v. ), generous with his wealth (vv. –) and famous for his εὐεργεσίη (vv. –). Some Hellenistic poems also incorporate local, non-Greek traditions of kingship, in part to put them in terms more intelligible to a Greek audience, as Selden has suggested with regard to Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo and the parallels he draws between its depiction of Apollo and the representation of the Egyptian god Horus (whom each Pharaoh re-embodied) in Egyptian    

 





 



 Cf. e.g. Isoc. Ad Nic. ., .. Cf. e.g. Isoc. Ad Nic. .. Cf. e.g. Letter of Aristeas , –, Isoc. Ad Nic. .–, Nic. .–. Cf. e.g. Mus. Ruf. .–. Hense. For the need to benefit one’s subjects, see Mus. Ruf.  Hense, Letter of Aristeas –, , Diod. Sic. ..; on the justice of kings see Diod. Sic. ..–, Isoc. Nic. .–, Ad Nic. ., Letter of Aristeas . See Isoc. Ad Nic. . for kings as ἀνουθέτητοι and cf. Nepos, De regibus .. An exception here was the Egyptian king, who was governed by laws from the perspective of Egyptian royal ideology as preserved in Diodorus Siculus (and possibly therefore Hecataeus of Abdera) .. (see Murray : ). This was in part related to Egyptian ideas concerning the role of the king in preserving cosmic order or maat: see Stephens : –, –. On Theocritus  as encapsulating various desirable royal attributes see Shipley :  (these are ‘divine ancestry, great power, a large territory, wealth, victory, generosity, and piety’, those characteristics Regan  takes up as the basis of her analysis of the kings in Apollonius). See in general on Theocritus  Hunter . Strootman :  comments that ‘The image of the king as a “spear-fighter” was pivotal to the ideology of all Hellenistic kingdoms’. Cf. the prominence of military success as a marker of greatness in Nepos, De regibus. Cf. e.g. Letter of Aristeas , Isoc. Ad Nic. .. Cf. the need for a king to be εὐεργετικός, φιλάνθρωπος, χρηστός (‘a benefactor, human and useful’, Mus. Ruf. . Hense). Theocritus , however, is far from a mechanical enactment of the principles of a treatise, and its formal models are poetic, such as the Homeric Hymns and Pindar: see further Murray : –. Selden : .

Exemplary Kings?



texts. In this chapter we shall investigate the nature of the relationship of the Argonautica to the broad Hellenistic conception of kingship and the degree to which we should see its kings and leaders as representing models or exemplars for contemporary Hellenistic kings or regal practices. It is worth emphasising, however, the absence of Greek mythological models for kingship from the theoretical treatments of the nature of kingship which we have examined. From one point of view this is not surprising, since the ultimate justification for kingship is the virtue of the particular, individual king (such as Philadelphus in the Letter of Aristeas) and his possession of the various virtues required for a beneficent reign, not the similarity to any specific mythological king, with the exception of Zeus as king of the gods. We should also note the range of types of literature produced broadly under royal patronage in the Hellenistic kingdoms, especially under the early Ptolemies. It would be a mistake not to conceive of such literature (and its audiences) as sophisticated and complex and presenting more than a straightforward royal programme of kingly aggrandisement or praise.

Exemplary Kings? Some valuable and important recent analyses of Apollonius against the socio-political context of the Ptolemaic kingdom have drawn an analogy between the Argonautica and Hellenistic poems offering ‘an idealized image of kingship, one intended to mirror (or cultivate) a just and peaceful monarchy’, such as Aratus’ Phaenomena, composed for the court of Antigonus Gonatas at Pella. Mori, for example, has suggested that Antigonus ‘was presumably flattered’ by what she sees as the poem’s implication that men should choose to follow the catasterised Dike who looks down on them (cf. Phaen. –), something she views as dependent on the wisdom of a just king, which reflects some of the ideas  

 



 Selden : –. Cf. e.g. Mus. Ruf. .– Hense, Isoc. Nic. .. As Murray : – comments with regard to Theocritus , the relationship implied between poet and patron by the poem is not one of formal panegyric, but something less formal and more open. In an important discussion, Cameron : – draws attention to the range of attitudes available to poets (and monarchs) within the early Ptolemaic kingdom, challenging the assumption that the early Hellenistic monarchies were (as he puts it) ‘totalitarian states’. Mori a: . Cf. Stephens , e.g. –, who regards Apollonius in his epic to be writing ‘about kings’ in a manner analogous to those of Callimachus and Theocritus. In general Stephens argues that the Hellenistic poets ‘explore the dimensions of Ptolemaic kingship’ through systematic incorporation of various aspects of Egyptian royal ideology and symbols (: ). Mori a: –, following Schiesaro .



Kings and Leaders

about kingship we have explored above. With regard to the Argonautica, Mori has explored how some of its events and episodes appear to reflect aspects of Macedonian or Ptolemaic kingly practice or institutions, and views this from the perspective that Alexandrian poetry was ‘inherently political because of its prominence in the politicized culture of the royal court and its contribution toward the expression of Ptolemaic ideology’. This turn toward a greater awareness of the socio-political contexts of Hellenistic, especially Ptolemaic, poetry has deepened our understanding of the ways in which characters, events and narratives can resonate with echoes of particular historical individuals, royal institutions or kingship ideology. We shall explore some examples of this from the Argonautica in this section. Nevertheless, I argue that such reflections of the ‘real-world context’ are in the Argonautica deeply complicated, in part by the presence of intertexts (in which Herodotus and his picture of monarchy are prominent) which problematise the presentation of kings and leaders in the epic and suggest they cannot be read as straightforward or idealised exemplars for the Ptolemies. The presentation of Hypsipyle in book  of the Argonautica is a good illustration of both the reflection of elements of the ‘real-world context’ of Ptolemaic monarchy, but also the complicating of a character and the consequent distancing and problematising of her as an exemplar or model. There are parallels between Jason’s dress and equipment as he goes to his first meeting with Hypsipyle and the imagery and costume employed by Alexander and the Ptolemies, and accordingly it has been suggested that the discussion between Hypsipyle and Jason at A.R. .–, in which she offers Jason rule of Lemnos, has the flavour of a real-world political union and that Hypsipyle herself echoes the powerful royal women of the Ptolemies, such as Arsinoe II, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. There are clearly, as Mori has emphasised, political aspects to the conduct   



 

As she puts it, ‘the multiple roles and responsibilities of kings and heroes in this epic draw on the real world context of Alexander and the early Ptolemies’ (Mori a: ). Mori a: . Cf. e.g. the quasi-allegorical reading of Regan  on the parallels between Pelias and Cassander (), Aietes and Antigonus Monopthalmus (, –), Apsyrtus and Demetrius Poliorcetes (–), Alcinous and Ptolemies Soter and Philadelphus (–). See Mori a: –, who explores how Jason’s cloak and spear echo the dress and iconography of Hellenistic kings, for example in visual representations, to the extent that she argues that ‘Jason’s ceremonial display of the spear and cloak was primarily invested with political, not amatory, meaning’ (). See Mori a: –. On the political power and influence of Hellenistic queens, especially Arsinoe II see Mori a: –, Stephens : –.



Exemplary Kings?

of Hypsipyle in particular in the Lemnian episode: she governs by consensus, summoning an assembly when the Argonauts arrive at Lemnos and proposing to it a course of action, but open to an alternative ‘if anyone can come up with another, better suggestion’ (εἴ τις ἄρειον ἔπος μητίσεται ἄλλη, A.R. .), and gives way to Polyxo’s plan of entrusting the Argonauts with their homes and city (A.R. .–). Nevertheless, Hypsipyle’s actions before and during the Argonauts’ stay on her island are troubling, to the extent that it is difficult to read her interaction with Jason as forming an example of an approved ‘hegemonic binary’ in Ptolemaic ideology. Rather, I suggest that the presentation of Hypsipyle suggests a distorted, distanced and deeply complicated reflection of situations such as the ‘shared rule’ of the Philadelphus and Arsinoe, rather than the straightforward promotion of an aspect of Ptolemaic ideology. Hypsipyle is marked out by the narrator as the only Lemnian woman not to have killed a Lemnian man: οἴη δ’ ἐκ πασέων γεραροῦ περιφείσατο πατρὸς Ὑψιπύλεια Θόαντος, ὃ δὴ κατὰ δῆμον ἄνασσεν· λάρνακι δ’ ἐν κοίλῃ μιν ὕπερθ’ ἁλὸς ἧκε φέρεσθαι, αἴ κε φύγῃ.

(A.R. . )

Of all of them Hypsipyle alone spared her elderly father, Thoas, who in fact ruled the people, and sent him over the sea in a hollow box, in case he might survive.

This has seemed to some commentators (despite the narrator’s comment on her motivation) a strategy for avoiding pollution rather than saving a life, but we might wonder why she acts against Thoas at all. It is his daughter who acts against Thoas, not (as we might have expected) his wife, which suggests that he has no queen who might act against a husband with a Thracian paramour in the manner of the other Lemnian women, and no husband is mentioned for Hypsipyle. So why does she place her father in the chest? Her action either seems unwarranted, in that he has committed 

   

In some ways the open Lemnian discussion of what should be done resembles the consideration of different possibilities in such passages as Xen. An. ..– and ..–, discussed below (see pp. –). Mori a: –, of which the most obvious example are the Theoi Adelphoi Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II. For discussion of how much formal political power Arsinoe II enjoyed in Egypt, see Mori a: –, Hazzard : –. Cf. Mori a: . E.g. Clauss : . Clauss considers whether Hypsipyle’s motive is ‘completely honorable’, but suspects Thoas of some sexual indiscretion.



Kings and Leaders

no offence against her, or the disquieting possibility is raised that she acted in order to get the throne, by at once removing Thoas and (perhaps) killing any half-brother who might threaten her succession. Such a possibility might well suggest itself to a Hellenistic reader familiar with the dynastic intrigues of the Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the success of Arsinoe (later Arsinoe II of Egypt) in persuading her husband Lysimachus, then in control of Macedonia and Asia Minor, to kill his own son Agathocles. Echoes of such events in the actions of Hypsipyle are (in part) distorted reflections of the regal politics of the Hellenistic kingdoms, but in light of the stress in Hellenistic kingship ideology on the centrality of the king’s virtue as the main justification for kingship, they serve to complicate and problematise the figure of Hypsipyle as an analogue or model for the ideological framework of the Ptolemies. The consequences of Hypsipyle’s (at least quasi-homicidal) action (along with those of the other Lemnian women) also have obviously transgressive results with regard to their inherited nomoi: the women give up their traditional roles and adopt male ones, such as putting on armour and ploughing fields, which the narrator tells us they find easier than their previous activities (A.R. .–). But Hypsipyle’s role as a ruler is marked as close to an impersonation of her father: she ‘put on her father’s armour’ (δῦν’ ἐνὶ τεύχεσι πατρός, A.R. .) when the Argonauts are spotted offshore, and ‘sat down on the stone seat of her father’ (θῶκον ἐφίζανε πατρὸς ἑοῖο | λάινον, A.R. .–) after speaking in the assembly, as if to emphasise that she has usurped her father’s position and is not qualified to rule. She is also not explicitly referred to as the ruler or queen of the Lemnians by a noun or verb of ruling, except at A.R. . where the verb ἀνασσέμεν (‘to rule’) appears in the Argonauts’ mistaken surmise that Hypsipyle is ruling because Thoas has died and she is his only child, and in Jason’s refusal to take the throne of Lemnos when he says that the

  

 

This would make still closer the parallels between Hypsipyle and Medea, since Medea engineers the death of a brother within the epic, and kills her own children in Euripides’ Medea. See in general on Macedonian intrigue and political kin-murder Mori a: –. See Walbank : , : –. The sequel is also relevant: Agathocles’ widow, Lysandra, and her half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus (both half-siblings of Arsinoe) persuaded Seleucus to invade Asia Minor, killing Lysimachus in the process, but also leading the assassination of Seleucus by Ptolemy Ceraunus. See pp. – above. Cf. Clauss : . It is also her father’s position of honour as king which she offers to Jason (A.R. .), rather than her own. See on the Aristophanic overtones of the Lemnian women p.  above.

Exemplary Kings?



ἀνακτορίη (‘sovereignty’, A.R. .) should remain with her. For all the echoes of powerful Ptolemaic queens, there is much in Hypsipyle’s portrayal complicating the motivation for her actions and suggesting that she is not an authentic ruler able to offer Jason rule over Lemnos from a position of authority and legitimacy. The other half of this couple, Jason, also has a complex relationship to the ‘real-world context’ of Hellenistic kingship. After the Catalogue of the Argonauts at the beginning of the epic there comes a very peculiar scene in which Jason offers the Argonauts the chance to select the ‘best man’ (τὸν ἄριστον, A.R. .) as their leader, and all indicate Heracles (.–), who instead refuses the honour and commands the group to have Jason as the leader, tolerating no dissent (A.R. .–). It has been suggested that there are echoes in the public selection of the leader of the Argonauts of the acclamation of Macedonian leaders by an authoritative group of nobles or soldiers, and in the support Heracles gives to Jason of the complex of factional support and the eradication of rivals involved in securing succession to the Macedonian throne. Anatole Mori has suggested that one driver for the odd scene is the need to deal with the presence of a potential rival to the leadership, Pelias’ son, Acastus, aboard the Argo, so that it becomes a confirmation of Jason’s authority, rather than a challenge. Nevertheless, I suggest that the effect on the readers is likely to have been to at least raise the question of the authority of Jason to lead the expedition, even if from another view it resolves some of the issues of leadership. The echoes of the acclamation of Macedonian kings from this perspective are likely to have underlined in particular the difference and distance between Jason and Philip II or Alexander, since this scene in which we find these echoes presents Jason as only the leader on the instructions of another one of the Argonauts, himself destined to abandon  



  

Note also A.R. . where Jason sets off Ὑψιπύλης βασιλήιον ἐς δόμον (‘to Hypsipyle’s royal palace’). Much has been written on this scene and on the characterisation of Jason and the effectiveness of his strategy as a means of reinforcing his authority: see, e.g., Fränkel : –, Vian : –, Hunter : –, Clauss : –, Mori a: –. Mori a: –, who cites the examples of Philip II’s acclamation in  in place of Amyntas, son of the previous king Perdiccas III, the acclamation of Ptolemy Soter by his troops in  and that of Ptolemy Ceraunus, killer of Seleucus (see n. ), by the army of his victim. Mori a:  drawing a parallel with Antipater’s support of Alexander. Mori a: –. In part, of course, this scene replays the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon at the beginning of the Iliad, but defuses the tension between the best warrior and the ‘leader’ of the expedition. See Hunter : –. On the parallels with the Greek assembly in Iliad  (which marks the resolution of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon), see Clauss : –.



Kings and Leaders

the expedition before it reaches Colchis. This dependence on others is a marker of Jason throughout the epic: the task set him by Pelias leads to a gathering of heroes to achieve his quest for the fleece, while he depends in particular on Medea to complete the tasks of Aietes and to subdue the dragon and gain the golden fleece. It is also strikingly at odds with the stress in Hellenistic kingship ideology on the unaccountability of the king and the paramount superiority of his power and virtue. The electing of the Argonautic leader should be seen in this context: one might usefully contrast the positive action taken by Darius to secure his kingship over the Persians in Herodotus book , by ensuring that his horse should be the first to neigh after sunrise, by getting his groom Oebares to excite it by means of its favourite mare. In fact, however, the clearest parallels for this scene are two clear example-models from Xenophon’s Anabasis. Jason, we should remember, is not being elected king, but rather leader of a Panhellenic expedition. There are strong echoes in the Argonautic episode of two scenes (with a similar broader narrative context) in the Anabasis, where the Greeks in Asia Minor re-affirm or choose the leader of their enterprise in alien, non-Greek territory. When the Greeks learn that they have been deceived by Cyrus as to the purpose of their expedition, Clearchus gathers his men and discusses the possibilities for action, inviting contributions from his soldiers (An. ..–), and culminating in Clearchus’ powerful statement that he would be prepared to obey whoever was chosen as general, which leads to the re-establishment of his authority to treat with Cyrus (..–): ὡς μὲν στρατηγήσοντα ἐμὲ ταύτην τὴν στρατηγίαν μηδεὶς ὑμῶν λεγέτω· πολλὰ γὰρ ἐνορῶ δι’ ἃ ἐμοὶ τοῦτο οὐ ποιητέον· ὡς δὲ τῷ ἀνδρὶ ὃν ἂν ἕλησθε πείσομαι ᾗ δυνατὸν μάλιστα, ἵνα εἰδῆτε ὅτι καὶ ἄρχεσθαι ἐπίσταμαι ὥς τις καὶ ἄλλος μάλιστα ἀνθρώπων. (An. ..) Let none of you regard me as the man who will take this command, since I see many reasons why I should not do it. But consider me as someone who will do all in his power to obey the man whom you choose, so you may know that I know as well as anyone else how to take orders also.

    

See pp. – above. Hdt. .–: there are two versions of how the horse was made to neigh first. Mori a: . On the Anabasis as a model for the Argonautica, see Beye : –, Fantuzzi & Hunter : – and especially Clauss . See also pp. – above. On the Xenophontic echo here see especially Clauss : –.

Exemplary Kings?



The contrast with the dependence of Jason’s authority on Heracles, and Heracles’ refusal to countenance any discussion, is striking: ὥς τε καὶ ἄλλον ἀναστήσεσθαι ἐρύξω. | αὐτός, ὅ τις ξυνάγειρε, καὶ ἀρχεύοι ὁμάδοιο (‘I will prevent anyone else from standing up. He who brought us together should lead the group’, A.R. .–). Similarly, when Xenophon in turn is proclaimed leader by the surviving officers after the killing of Clearchus and the other generals, there are echoes of the earlier speech of Clearchus, and a marked contrast with the situation depicted in the election of Jason: φάνητε τῶν λοχαγῶν ἄριστοι καὶ τῶν στρατηγῶν ἀξιοστρατηγότεροι. κἀγὼ δέ, εἰ μὲν ὑμεῖς ἐθέλετε ἐξορμᾶν ἐπὶ ταῦτα, ἕπεσθαι ὑμῖν βούλομαι, εἰ δ’ ὑμεῖς τάττετ’ ἐμὲ ἡγεῖσθαι, οὐδὲν προφασίζομαι τὴν ἡλικίαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀκμάζειν ἡγοῦμαι ἐρύκειν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ τὰ κακά. (An. .. ) Show yourselves to be the best of commanders and more deserving of generalship than the generals! And I, if you want to set out towards these things, I am happy to follow you, but if you appoint me to lead, I will not use the excuse of my age; rather I think I am at the zenith of my powers to ward off evils from myself.

Here too we see a willingness to follow, but also a preparedness to lead, and a respect for the views of his fellow officers very different from the situation depicted in the Argonautica. Jason’s election as leader recalls these episodes from the Anabasis, as it does aspects of the acclamation and succession of Macedonian kings, but by comparison with these parallels his leadership appears much less firmly established and authoritative. Fantuzzi and Hunter have commented that there is little interest in the Argonautica in the ‘discourse of power’ as compared with (for example) the Aeneid, and that we find instead ‘merely gestures towards certain traditional topics associated with kingship’. In part this is because Jason himself is not a king, but it is also because the presentation of Jason as a leader is complicated and problematised in a number of different ways, as we shall explore in the next section with particular reference to Herodotus. Jason’s authority is destabilised by comparison with the ‘real-world context’ of Hellenistic kingship and models for Greek leadership as displayed in the Anabasis: these parallels are recalled but also distorted and distanced by the presentation of Jason.

 

See Fantuzzi & Hunter : . Fantuzzi & Hunter : – and see also Clauss : .



Kings and Leaders

The Problematic of Monarchy A crucial (but neglected) part of the background to the portrayal of kingship and leadership in the Argonautica is the presentation of monarchy and individual kings in Herodotus. As we have seen, Herodotus is a key intertext for the epic in a number of different ways, serving as modellocodice for important elements of historiographical discourse and as a modello-esemplare in several key passages in the epic. I argue here that the portrayal of kingship in Herodotus is a further important way in which Apollonius makes use of the Histories as a modello-esemplare in the Argonautica, in particular to complicate the presentation of those kings and leaders depicted in the poem and to problematise their exemplary potential. Both texts display a keen interest in kings, queens and their actions, and feature a large number of both Greek and non-Greek rulers including (in Herodotus) Croesus, Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, Amasis, Polycrates, Gelon, Demaratus, Cleomenes, Leonidas, and (in Apollonius) Pelias, Orpheus, Cyzicus, Amycus, Lycus, Aietes, Alcinous. Moreover, one might say that Herodotus is about kingship, the ‘problematic of monarchy’, not simply the power or actions of individual kings, but more generally quasi-monarchical power in different guises. Repeatedly in Herodotus we see kings or tyrants justify the criticisms Otanes makes in his speech in the Persian constitutional debate in book . Otanes at Hdt. ..– presents monarchy as allowing the king ‘to do what he wants with impunity’ (ἀνευθύνῳ ποιέειν τὰ βούλεται) and emphasises that even ‘the best of all men’ (τὸν ἄριστον ἀνδρῶν) would in that situation depart ‘from normal ways of thinking’ (ἐκτὸς τῶν ἐωθότων νοημάτων) so that the monarch is ‘the most capricious of all men’ (ἀναρμοστότατον δὲ πάντων). The most important criticism, however, is that the king ‘breaks ancestral customs, violates women and kills men without a trial’ (νόμαιά τε κινέει πάτρια καὶ βιᾶται γυναῖκας κτείνει τε ἀκρίτους).

 

 

On the portrayal of Persian kings in Herodotus, see Fitzsimons . Munson : –. See further Lateiner : –, Marincola :  for Herodotus’ broadly negative depiction of monarchy. On the differences in the depictions of Persian and Greek kings in Herodotus, see Dewald . All the more so if one reads Herodotus as looking in part to the rise in Athenian ‘imperial’ power through the fifth century. See, e.g., Raaflaub , Moles  and in general Forsdyke . This speech bears close examination as an important but neglected witness to the Greek ideas about kingship being developed by Apollonius. In general on the constitutional debate in Herodotus , see Pelling , Roy .

The Problematic of Monarchy



Herodotus begins his first logos with an act of royal transgression against a woman, the deliberate exposure by the Lydian king Candaules of his own wife to his friend, Gyges. It is Candaules’ power as a king which allows him to demand his subject perform a transgressive act, as Gyges reveals when he says ‘I beg you not to ask me to do something unlawful’ (σεο δέομαι μὴ δέεσθαι ἀνόμων, Hdt. ..). Kings can compel their subjects to break the nomoi of their people. Something similar is true of the end of the Histories, where Xerxes attempts to use his royal power to force Masistes to divorce his wife and marry Xerxes’ daughter instead (Hdt. .). Otanes himself gives two examples of the transgressive kings he is criticising, Cambyses and the false Smerdis (who is in fact a Magus). Cambyses ordered the murder of his brother, the real Smerdis, on the strength of a dream about Smerdis sitting on his throne (Hdt. ..–), and himself killed with an arrow (and without a trial) the son of Prexaspes, his most trusted subject and the man who killed Smerdis, because Prexaspes was insufficiently flattering of him (Hdt. ..–). Nor is such behaviour confined to non-Greeks: Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, kills one brother and banishes the other (Hdt. ..), while Periander of Corinth kills his wife, Melissa (Hdt. ..) and is reported by one Socleas of Corinth as having ‘displayed every wickedness to his people’ (πᾶσαν κακότητα ἐξέφαινε ἐς τοὺς πολιήτας, Hdt. .η.), including forcing all the women to strip naked (Hdt. .η.–) and having sex with his dead wife’s corpse (.η.). Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to present the Histories as relentlessly negative about kingship and kings. In Herodotus monarchy is defended successfully as the right form of government for the Persians by Darius in the Persian constitutional debate (.), and there are clearly several sympathetic characters (at least on some occasions) to be found among the monarchs of the Histories, including Croesus, Cyrus, Amasis, Polycrates, Darius and even Xerxes. The brutal Periander of Corinth elicits sympathy in the story of his attempts at reconciliation with his son Lycophron, whom he hopes will take over as tyrant from him (Hdt. .–). When they finally agree to terms acceptable to both, Lycophron is murdered by the Corcyrans (Hdt. .). This is a reminder that no king, however powerful, has complete control over the events of his life, as most of the kings in Herodotus come to understand (Croesus is  

See further Asheri et al. :  on the positive elements of monarchy in Herodotus, at least for some peoples on some occasions. On the sympathetic and positive elements of the Herodotean portrayal of Xerxes, see Bowie : –, Gruen : –.



Kings and Leaders

defeated by Cyrus, Darius by the Scythians, Xerxes by the Greeks, etc.). In Apollonius too kings can provide pathos, as in the story of the welcoming Cyzicus who is impeccably hospitable to the visiting Argonauts but still dies, through a misunderstanding, at Jason’s hands (A.R. .–), which prompts the suicide of his recent bride (A.R. .–). And though five out of the six named basileis (‘kings’) encountered by the Argonauts are in Amanda Regan’s view failures in terms of her perspective on Hellenistic royal ideology, there is one conspicuous success, Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians. In my view, however, he too is problematised by an epic which engages repeatedly with Herodotus.

Kings in Herodotus and Apollonius In the following sections we shall explore the different aspects of the picture of monarchy in Herodotus, before examining the various ways in which this picture is recalled in the Argonautica. We begin by considering the connections between tyranny and ethnicity in Herodotus and Apollonius. At the end of book  of Herodotus, the Spartans respond to Alexander of Macedon’s message from Mardonius to the Athenians attempting to detach them from the alliance with Sparta with a reminder to the Athenians that Alexander is both a tyrant and (at least) closely implicated with barbarians: ‘He must do these things, since being a tyrant he is the helper of tyrant. But you should not do these things, if you are wise, knowing that there is nothing trustworthy or reliable in barbarians’ (τούτῳ μὲν γὰρ ταῦτα ποιητέα ἐστί· τύραννος γὰρ ἐὼν τυράννῳ συγκατεργάζεται· ὑμῖν δὲ οὐ ποιητέα, εἴ περ εὖ τυγχάνετε φρονέοντες, ἐπισταμένοισι ὡς βαρβάροισί ἐστι οὔτε πιστὸν οὔτε ἀληθὲς οὐδέν, Hdt. ..). But in fact there is no easy identification to be made in Herodotus between tyranny and non-Greeks on the one hand and Hellenic freedom on the other. Alexander himself complicates this opposition: in book  he engineers the killing of Persian envoys who are visiting his father Amyntas because of their sexual transgressions against Macedonian women. The sexual aggression of the Persians is itself a marker of their (quasi‑monarchical) power and a reminder of the behaviour of Candaules at the beginning of the   

Regan : –. She bases her conception of Hellenistic royal ideology, outlined at –, on Shipley : . For a more detailed picture of Hellenistic kingship ideology see pp. – above. See pp. – below. See also pp. – above on the Hellenicity of Alexander and the Macedonians.

Kings in Herodotus and Apollonius



Histories. They insist on the introduction of women at the end of the meal ‘since it is a Persian custom’ (νόμος ἐστὶ τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι, Hdt. ..) to do so, and Amyntas agrees (even though it is not customary for the Macedonians), because of the Persians’ power: ‘You are our masters and since your desire this, you shall have it’ (ἐπείτε δὲ ὑμεῖς ἐόντες δεσπόται προσχρηίζετε τούτων, παρέσται ὑμῖν καὶ ταῦτα, Hdt. ..). When Alexander has replaced the women with men without beards who are to kill the Persians he emphasises both the generosity of the welcome they received and his own Greekness by giving them a message for their king which they will never take back (‘Report back to the king that sent you how a Greek man, his viceroy in Macedonia, welcomed you well both at the table and in the bedroom’, πρὸς δὲ καὶ βασιλέι τῷ πέμψαντι ἀπαγγείλητε ὡς ἀνὴρ Ἕλλην Μακεδόνων ὕπαρχος εὖ ὑμέας ἐδέξατο καὶ τραπέζῃ καὶ κοίτῃ, Hdt. ..). From this perspective the action looks in part like one designed to identify the Macedonians as Greeks and distinguish them from the very different nomoi of Persians, and Herodotus declares himself convinced of the Hellenicity of the Macedonian royal family at the end of this episode (Hdt. ..), but it is also clear that Amyntas and Alexander are strongly associated with tyranny here. Their banquet is of a sumptuousness which suggests the lavish resources of tyrants (δεῖπνον μεγαλοπρεπές, ‘magnificent feast’, Hdt. ..; μεγάλως δὲ ξεινίζεις, ‘you host us so grandly’, Hdt. ..), while Alexander’s sarcastic words above draw attention to the fact that the Persians’ abuse of Macedonian women was only possible because he (or his father) is their ‘viceroy’ (ὕπαρχος) and the Macedonians have given them earth and water (Hdt. ..), and agreed to waive their own nomoi in favour of the Persians’. And Alexander even seems to reverse his own hostility to sexual contact between Persians and Macedonians, since he gives his sister (Gygaea) to the Persian leader of the search party sent after the missing envoys (Hdt. ..). As Fearn has noted, her name is another reminder of the Candaules–Gyges episode, and of the Lydian prostitution of their daughters (Hdt. ..), which was one of the few markers of Lydian difference from Greeks. Alexander may be a Greek, then, but he is also a tyrant, and therefore likely to act like one. There are further characters in Herodotus who combine being Greek with being tyrants and who also work against any easy association of tyranny with non-Greeks. The Sicilian tyrant Gelon, for  

  See the penetrating analysis of Fearn . Fearn : . Fearn : .  See also pp. – above. See Hall : , Fearn : –.



Kings and Leaders

example, also proves himself fundamentally tyrannical in outlook when he rejects the overtures of the mainland Greeks to join the war against the Persians. They make their appeal on the basis of their shared Greekness and the battle for freedom (as well as the danger to Gelon if they should be defeated): ‘Help those freeing Greece and join in freeing it. Together all of Greece becomes a powerful force and a match in battle for the invaders’ (βοήθει τε τοῖσι ἐλευθεροῦσι τὴν Ἑλλάδα καὶ συνελευθέρου. ἁλὴς μὲν γὰρ γενομένη πᾶσα ἡ Ἑλλὰς χεὶρ μεγάλη συνάγεται, καὶ ἀξιόμαχοι γινόμεθα τοῖσι ἐπιοῦσι, Hdt. ..). Gelon will not join them, however, unless he is given command of either the army or the fleet (Hdt. .), a condition unacceptable in turn to the Spartans and the Athenians (Hdt. ., .). The real reason, however, is the fact that taking orders from others (ἄρχεσθαι ὑπὸ Λακεδαιμονίων) would be unacceptable (δεινὸν δὲ καὶ οὐκ ἀνασχετόν) to the tyrant of Sicily (ἐὼν Σικελίης τύραννος, Hdt. ..). Submitting to the Spartans is worse, it seems, than giving earth and water to the Persian king, since Gelon prepares an insurance policy against Greek defeat and readies a gift in the hands of one Cadmus to await the outcome: ‘If the barbarian should triumph, he should give him the money and also earth and water from those whom Gelon ruled, but if the Greeks should win, he should bring it back’ (καὶ ἢν μὲν ὁ βάρβαρος νικᾷ, τά τε χρήματα αὐτῷ διδόναι καὶ γῆν τε καὶ ὕδωρ τῶν ἄρχει ὁ Γέλων, ἢν δὲ οἱ Ἕλληνες, ὀπίσω ἀπάγειν, Hdt. ..). This is reminiscent of Alexander (and the Spartans’ description of him in book ), in that presumably the reason that submission to the Great King would be acceptable to Gelon is that he is also a king and thus worthy as an overlord in a way that is not true of one’s fellow Greeks (the Spartan dual kings are presumably not tyrannical enough). A tyrant will only submit to a tyrant. Another Greek tyrant, Polycrates, is explicitly compared to Sicilian tyrants such as Gelon by Herodotus in terms of his ‘magnificence’ (μεγαλοπρεπείη, Hdt. ..–). Magnificence is a clear characteristic of tyrants in Herodotus, and one in which Polycrates particularly excels. His story in Herodotus also echoes the narrative trajectory of other kings, such as Croesus in book . Like Croesus Polycrates is both successful (winning every military engagement, Hdt. .. ~ cf. .– on the zenith of Croesus’ reign) and ambitious (Polycrates plans to be master of 

See Kurke : –, who points out that the majority of the seven occurrences of μεγαλοπρεπής or μεγαλοπρεπείη in Herodotus are used of kings or tyrants (in addition to the Polycrates example we find the Persian Great King, .., ..; the Macedonian king, ..; Cleisthenes tyrant of Sicyon, .), and demonstrates the association of tyrants with μεγαλοπρέπεια more widely in Greek texts.

Kings in Herodotus and Apollonius



the sea, Hdt. .. ~ cf. Croesus’ plans to destroy the Persian empire, ., ). Despite warnings to the contrary from his kingly guest-friend Amasis about his impending doom (Hdt. .), and from oracles and his daughter’s dream about Oroetes (Hdt. .), Polycrates sails to Magnesia and is killed. So too Croesus, an ally of Amasis (Hdt. ..), is warned to ‘look to the end in all things’ by Solon (Hdt. ..), because a rich man’s fortune may be overturned before his death, and misinterprets the warnings of oracles and omens (Hdt. .–, ), which leads to his defeat and near-immolation on a funeral pyre (Hdt. .). Both stories end with a reckoning for the previous good fortune of the rulers: Croesus recalls the words of Solon (Hdt. ..), while the Herodotean narrator points out the fulfilment of Amasis’ prediction about Polycrates’ unhappy end (Hdt. .., cf. Hdt. ., ). In Herodotus there are also prominent long-established hereditary Greek monarchies, as well as the more recently born tyrannies of figures such as Gelon and Polycrates. Here too we find elements which strongly recall non-Greek tyrants. The best example is perhaps Cleomenes, Agiad king in Sparta’s peculiar dual kingship. Cleomenes becomes centrally involved in a palace intrigue to remove his fellow king Demaratus, who has himself been working against Cleomenes by attacking his reputation (Hdt. .., ..). Cleomenes exploits the fact that Demaratus’ mother had been married to someone else before her marriage to his father (Hdt. .), which was soon followed by his birth, so quickly indeed that Ariston, Demaratus’ father, publicly wondered about whether he could really be his son (Hdt. .). Leotychidas, who is to succeed Demaratus, brings (under Cleomenes’ prompting) a legal case against him on the grounds that he is not Ariston’s son, on the basis of the remarks Ariston publicly made about the lack of time between his marriage and his son’s birth (Hdt. ..–). Cleomenes’ behaviour in this episode is strongly paralleled by the arguments over the succession to the Persian king Darius, since he had three sons by one wife before he became king and another four by Atossa after his accession (Hdt. .). Xerxes is the eldest of the younger four sons, but he succeeds to the throne in part because of the sophistic argument that when the eldest of the elder four sons was born Darius was but a private citizen, but when Xerxes was born he was the   

The defeats of Polycrates and Croesus are each marked by an omen associated with their child: the dream of Polycrates’ daughter (Hdt. .) and the first words of Croesus’ mute son (Hdt. ..). Some editors (such as Stein and Hude) bracket τῇ . . . προεμαντεύσατο at Hdt. .. but the statement is in keeping with Herodotus’ normal storytelling patterns. Herodotus’ account of the origins of this institution is at ..



Kings and Leaders

ruler of Persia, and so Xerxes was the rightful successor (Hdt. .). The deprivation of the heir by natural justice in this way is reminiscent of the deposing of Demaratus in book , which is not accidental since the author of the sophistic advice to Xerxes is Demaratus himself, who has come in exile to the court of the Great King (Hdt. ..). Cleomenes also strongly resembles another Persian king, Cambyses, in his madness and eventual death. The progress of their madness is described in very similar terms, with a pronounced move from a previous instability to full-blown insanity: κατελθόντα δὲ αὐτὸν αὐτίκα ὑπέλαβε μανίη νοῦσος, ἐόντα καὶ πρότερον ὑπομαργότερον (Hdt. .., of Cleomenes) When he returned at once a madness seized him, having been somewhat mad before. Καμβύσης δέ, ὡς λέγουσι Αἰγύπτιοι, αὐτίκα διὰ τοῦτο τὸ ἀδίκημα ἐμάνη, ἐὼν οὐδὲ πρότερον φρενήρης. (Hdt. ..) Cambyses, so the Egyptians say, at once became mad because of the crime, having been not entirely sane before.

Both Cleomenes and Cambyses are also religious transgressors: Cambyses kills the Apis bull in Egypt (Hdt. .), while Cleomenes is responsible for killing several Argives who have taken sanctuary at Argos in a grove sacred to Argus and burning it down, as well as of performing a sacrifice forbidden to foreigners at the temple of Hera at Argos (Hdt. .–). Their deaths also come from self-inflicted wounds from blades, one deliberate (as far as a madman can act deliberately), the other accidental: ‘Cleomenes took the knife and began to maim himself beginning with his calves’ (Κλεομένης δὲ παραλαβὼν τὸν σίδηρον ἄρχετο ἐκ τῶν κνημέων ἑωυτὸν λωβώμενος, Hdt. ..); ‘And as he [i.e. Cambyses] sprang onto his horse the top of the sheath of his sword fell off and the naked sword struck him on the thigh’ (καί οἱ ἀναθρῴσκοντι ἐπὶ τὸν ἵππον τοῦ κολεοῦ τοῦ ξίφεος ὁ μύκης ἀποπίπτει, γυμνωθὲν δὲ τὸ ξίφος παίει τὸν μηρόν, Hdt. ..–). Cambyses’ death appears to be retribution for the killing of the Apis bull, since he strikes himself in the very spot he had wounded the god (Hdt. ..), while Herodotus discusses a number of possibilities as to the cause of Cleomenes’ death, including his religious transgressions and his treatment of Demaratus (Hdt. ., .). The close parallelism between the fates of these two kings, one Greek and one non-Greek, serves to underline the close connections between the characteristics of different kings and tyrants, whatever their ethnicity. Kingship and power, whether

Kings in Herodotus and Apollonius



wielded by Greeks or not, is problematic in Herodotus. Power, as Otanes predicts, tends to corrupt. In Apollonius, too, the kings depicted demonstrate that there are no simple associations to be made between certain peoples and types of government. The most prominent kings in the epic are one Greek (Pelias) and one Colchian (Aietes), whose presentation is very similar. Both set Jason ‘tasks’ to complete (ἄεθλον, A.R. ., of the voyage Pelias enjoins Jason to make to Colchis; ἄεθλος, A.R. ., of the yoking and driving of the bulls of Aietes): Aietes makes an explicit comparison between his actions and those of Pelias: δώσω τοι χρύσειον ἄγειν δέρος, ἤν κ’ ἐθέλῃσθα, πειρηθείς. ἐσθλοῖς γὰρ ἐπ’ ἀνδράσιν οὔ τι μεγαίρω, ὡς αὐτοὶ μυθεῖσθε τὸν Ἑλλάδι κοιρανέοντα. (A.R. . )

I shall give to you the golden fleece to take away, if you want, when you have been tested. I do not begrudge anything to noble men, just as you tell of that king in Greece.

Both Pelias and Aietes compel Jason to carry out his task: the voyage after the fleece is regularly described as the ‘command’ (ἐφετμή) of Pelias, while Jason realises he has no option but to attempt the test set by Aietes:





 

This is true even of leaders who are not kings. Herodotus anticipates the later career of Themistocles, for example, whose personal ambitions eventually outweigh his commitment to the corporate enterprise of the Greeks against the Persians: Themistocles throws his weight behind the view that the Greeks should not sail to the Hellespont after Salamis and destroy the bridges there, ‘to store up favour with the Persians, so that in case he ever fell foul of the Athenians he would have somewhere to turn’ (Hdt. ..). Accordingly he sends a message to Xerxes claiming credit for the Greeks not destroying the bridges (Hdt. .), and of course he is to end up at the court of the Great King, as Herodotus notes τά περ ὦν καὶ ἐγένετο (‘These things in fact came to pass’, Hdt. ..), of Themistocles’ need to find refuge from Athens. The case of Pausanias is similar, though not quite so explicit: Herodotus reports some as believing Pausanias wants to become tyrant of all Greece (Hdt. .) and his arrogance as the excuse proffered by the Athenians for depriving the Spartans of their command (Hdt. ..), while the story of Pausanias’ comparison of extravagant Persian meals with austere Spartan ones at Hdt. . in order to demonstrate the stupidity of the Great King is deeply ironic given his later history at the Persian court, where he has a Persian table set for himself (Thuc. .. and see Flower & Marincola : ). One might note that the same is true of Jason’s future actions, when the joint enterprise of the Argonautic expedition comes to an end and he looks to his own political situation at Corinth (and so jettisons Medea in favour of a more politically useful wife, as Euripides depicts in the Medea). Aietes is referred to as ‘king’, ‘kingly’ or ‘ruling’ through a cognate of βασιλεύς, ἄναξ, κρείων or κοιρανέω ten times, Pelias twelve times, while the king next most commonly referred to thus (Alcinous) receives only four such references (out of a total of sixty-six occurrences). Cf. Fränkel : , Levin : –, Thalmann : . See A.R. ., ., ., ..



Kings and Leaders Αἰήτη, μάλα τοί με δίκῃ περιπολλὸν ἐέργεις. τῶ καὶ ἐγὼ τὸν ἄεθλον ὑπερφίαλόν περ ἐόντα τλήσομαι, εἰ καί μοι θανέειν μόρος.

(A.R. . )

Aietes, indeed justly do you constrain me greatly. Therefore I will endure the task though it is tremendous, even if I am fated to die.

Both kings are also characterised by their ὕβρις (‘insolence’, ‘arrogant violence’): Pelias is an ‘arrogant king’ (βασιλῆος ἀτασθάλου, A.R. .), while Aietes ‘is banefully armed with destructive cruelty’ (ἀλλ’ αἰνῶς ὀλοῇσιν ἀπηνείῃσιν ἄρηρεν, A.R. .). Jason and the Argonauts (at least as a group) are marked as different from Aietes and Pelias, though Jason’s leadership of the group is also problematic, if for very different reasons.

Violence and Power Indeed, one of the most disturbing characteristics of monarchs which Otanes identifies in Herodotus is their ὕβρις (hybris), the complex of arrogance and a propensity for transgressive behaviour and violence which is well illustrated by the behaviour of Cambyses. Such hybris is the most prominent aspect of the portrayal of Amycus at the beginning of book  of the Argonautica. He is described by the narrator as a ‘haughty king’ (βασιλῆος ἀγήνορος, A.R. .) and ‘the most arrogant of men’ (ὑπεροπληέστατον ἀνδρῶν, A.R. .) because he forces a ‘shameful ordinance’ (ἀεικέα θεσμόν, A.R. .) on travellers visiting his land to box against him. He neglects to ask the Argonauts who they are ‘in his insolence’ (ὑπερβασίῃσιν, A.R. .), while he speaks ‘proudly’ (μέγα φρονέων, A.R. .) and Polydeuces speaks against his ‘evil violence’ (κακήν . . . βίην, A.R. .–). Amycus is strongly associated with a brutality and lack of civilisation which resembles that of the Cyclops in the Odyssey, but his explicit status as a king (he is called basileus at A.R. ., . and ἄναξ, ‘king’, at A.R. ., .) makes a significant difference: he transgresses in the manner of a monarch, not simply because he lives in a pre-civilised     

These are the descriptions of Argos and Jason respectively. See further below on the ὕβρις of these kings. Idas, for example, shares some of the aspects of royal ὕβρις (see A.R. .–): he is described by Idmon as speaking ἀτάσθαλα (‘arrogant’ or ‘outrageous’ things, A.R. .). See on Jason’s character and leadership pp. – above and  below. See also his ‘pride’ (ἀγηνορίης) at A.R. .. See Hunter : , : . Amycus also resembles in some ways a Titan or Giant (Hunter : –). See in general on Amycus Regan : –.

Violence and Power



state like Polyphemus. Here again the use of Herodotus’ depiction of kingship as a reference-point allows us to see how Apollonius varies his Homeric model. Violent transgression is not confined, however, to non-Greek leaders in the Argonautica. Jason too, for example, displays troubling features which recall the criticisms of Otanes. Jason is not a king, of course, but he is the rightful claimant to the royal throne occupied by Pelias (hence Pelias’ own quasi-homicidal reaction to Jason’s arrival), and leads the expedition of Argonauts. Much has been written on Jason’s character and his problematic qualities as a leader, but here it will be sufficient to concentrate on one clear act of quasi-monarchical transgression, his murder of Apsyrtus. What is at issue between Jason and Apsyrtus is whether Jason took Medea legitimately (recall the violation of women by force which Otanes notes as one of the most important faults of monarchs), while he kills him in an ambush and naturally therefore without a trial: ὀξὺ δὲ πανδαμάτωρ λοξῷ ἴδεν οἷον ἔρεξαν ὄμματι νηλειὴς ὀλοφώιον ἔργον Ἐρινύς.

(A.R. . )

The all conquering, pitiless Fury saw keenly with a disapproving eye what kind of murderous deed they had performed.

He then buries him ‘in the ground’ (ἐν γαίῃ), where the bones still lie (A.R. .–), and in doing so breaks one of the ‘ancestral customs’ (νόμαια . . . πάτρια) of the Colchians, who, as Apollonius has emphasised, hang male corpses in the air from trees, since ‘it is not right for them to bury in the ground (ἐνὶ γαίῃ) and raise a tomb over them’ (οὐδ’ ἐνὶ γαίῃ | ἔστι θέμις στείλαντας ὕπερθ’ ἐπὶ σῆμα χέεσθαι, A.R. .–). Jason may observe what is θέμις (‘right’) when it comes to expiating treacherous murders, such as the one he has just committed (A.R. .), but his killing is strongly characterised as transgressive of both Greek and Colchian customs. The most prominent royal hybris in Apollonius is, however, that of Pelias and Aietes, as we have touched on above. Pelias’ command to Jason to bring back the fleece is κρυερή (‘chill’, A.R. ., .), while the     

 See also pp. – and –. See Regan , e.g. . For the election of Jason as the Argonautic leader see pp. – above. See, e.g., Hunter  and : – for orientation on this vast topic. On the probable echo here of Pindar, O. .– see Hunter : . On the use of ‘ethnographic themis’ here see p.  above.



Kings and Leaders

narrator is explicit about the homicidal intention behind this command (‘so he might lose his return home’, νόστον ὀλέσσῃ, A.R. .). Argos also makes it clear that Pelias is acting to deprive Jason of what is rightfully his: ‘A certain king, keen to drive this man far from his country and property . . . sends him to journey here’ (τόνδε τις ἱέμενος πάτρης ἀπάνευθεν ἐλάσσαι | καὶ κτεάνων βασιλεὺς . . . | . . . πέμπει δεῦρο νέεσθαι, A.R. .–). Aietes is ‘overbearing Aietes’ (Αἰήτῃ ὑπερήνορι) for both the primary narrator (A.R. .) and Medea (A.R. .) and he treats the Argonauts and the sons of Phrixus disdainfully after they have arrived at Colchis, reacting with rage to the words of Argos describing the Argonauts’ quest (A.R. .–) and assuring them that they would have been mutilated if they had not already eaten at his table (A.R. .–). Aietes resembles (as Amycus did) the Homeric Cyclops, in particular in the question he asks the Argonauts about the location of their ship (A.R. . ~ Od. .) and in his consideration of the Argonauts as brigands (A.R. .– ~ Od. .–, –), but he is also reminiscent of some Herodotean kings. Amanda Regan has suggested that there is a parallel to be drawn with Cambyses: both have a striking ability to instil fear in others. Medea’s actions at the beginning of book  are driven by ‘most grievous fear’ (ἀλεγεινότατον . . . φόβον, A.R. .), and though this is implanted by Hera it is also clear that since she rightly surmises Aietes knows of her actions she is afraid of suffering ‘every evil’ (πᾶσαν . . . κακότητα, A.R. .) at his hands, and so flees. Aietes also assures his subjects of the terrible fate they will experience if they do not return Medea (A.R. .–), and fear of their king drives the Colchians at Drepane to allow Alcinous to let them remain there (βασιλῆος ἑοῦ τρομέοντες ἐνιπάς, ‘trembling at the threats of their own king’, A.R. .). As Regan notes Amasis is ‘troubled and fearful at the power of the Persians’ (τῇ δυνάμι τῶν Περσέων ἀχθόμενος καὶ ἀρρωδέων, Hdt. ..) and so unable simply to refuse to send his daughter in marriage to Cambyses when he requests her, while the Persian βασιλήιοι δικασταί (‘royal judges’) act ‘in fear of Cambyses’ (δείσαντες Καμβύσεα, Hdt. ..) when they find a pretext to allow him to marry his own sister. Prexaspes witnesses his son murdered before his eyes by Cambyses 

 

Regan :  also suggests that his reference to the sons of Phrixus as παιδὸς ἐμῆς κοῦροι Φρίξοιό τε (‘my daughter’s sons, and Phrixus’’, A.R. .) indicates his arrogance since it places Chalciope first of their parents, ahead of Phrixus, and describes her in terms of her relationship with Aietes.  See on the Cyclops parallels Hunter : , –. Regan : –. On causing fear as a characteristic also of Amycus, see Vian : .

Violence and Power



but ‘fearing for himself’ (περὶ ἑωυτῷ δειμαίνοντα, Hdt. ..) does not complain or object to the king. Aietes is thus strongly associated with violence or potential violence and such violence is one of the most striking markers of kingly power in Herodotus. Kings have the ability to do or command violence against others, often without any check or control. A good example is Xerxes’ treatment of the Lydian Pythius and his eldest son. Pythius is the richest man in the world, apart from the Great King, and welcomes Xerxes lavishly at Celaenae and even offers to help finance the war against the Greeks (Hdt. .). In return Xerxes makes him his guest-friend (ξεῖνόν τέ σε ποιεῦμαι ἐμόν, Hdt. ..). But when Pythius asks Xerxes to allow one son out of five to remain with him instead of accompanying Xerxes into battle, Xerxes calls Pythius his ‘slave’ (δοῦλος, Hdt. ..) and orders the killing of the eldest son, who is cut into two halves and placed on either side of the road, so that the army of Xerxes can pass between the two parts of the mutilated corpse (Hdt. ..). This violence towards the son of a guest-friend is very different from Xerxes’ protection of another guest-friend, Demaratus, from the attacks of Achaemenes, Xerxes’ brother, who objects to Demaratus’ plan to launch attacks against the Spartans from the island of Cythera: οὕτω ὦν κακολογίης πέρι τῆς ἐς Δημάρητον, ἐόντος ἐμοὶ ξείνου, ἔχεσθαί τινα τοῦ λοιποῦ κελεύω (‘Therefore I forbid anyone from slandering Demaratus in the future, since he is my guest-friend’, Hdt. ..). This underlines the fact that kings can be capricious and inconsistent, which is itself in part a consequence of their being little to check or control them. Such absence of control is one of the aspects of monarchy to which Otanes objects (Hdt. ..), which itself gave rise to the emphasis on monarchical selfcontrol and virtue on the part of the ideal king in Hellenistic kingship ideology. The ability for unfettered action is also clear to the ‘royal judges’ of Cambyses who conveniently discover ‘a law by which the king of   





See Regan : –. See Munson :  n. ,  n.  for the mutilations of others’ bodies as a term of the ‘monarchical code’ in Herodotus. There are echoes of Croesus in this story: Pythius is a vastly wealthy Lydian who loses his son to his guest-friend and comes into disastrous contact with the Great King. Pythius is the ‘son of Atys’ (Hdt. ..), which is the name of the son of Croesus’ killed by his guest-friend, Adrastus. How & Wells  ad Hdt. . speculate that Pythius may in fact be the grandson of Croesus, but it is the narrative pattern which is probably more significant. We might compare Jason’s high-minded words on the universality of xenia before the meeting with Aietes (A.R. .–) and his treacherous ambush of Apsyrtus in the next book (A.R. .–). See pp. – above.



Kings and Leaders

the Persians is able to do whatever he wants’ (νόμον, τῷ βασιλεύοντι Περσέων ἐξεῖναι ποιέειν τὸ ἂν βούληται, Hdt. ..). This must lead to hybris, as Otanes notes, the abuse of ancestral customs (e.g. the Persian custom by which any Persian, including the king, cannot execute anyone accused of only one crime, Hdt. .) and the killing of people without judgement or trial (ἀκρίτους, Hdt. ..). The third aspect noted at the end of Otanes’ diatribe against monarchy is the abuse of women (βιᾶται γυναῖκας), of which the kings in Herodotus also give some powerful examples. One such is Xerxes, who has an affair with his son Darius’ wife, Artaynte (Hdt. ..), and then tries to convince his brother Masistes to give up his wife and marry Xerxes’ daughter, finally ordering him to divorce her (Hdt. .). Medea in turn fears terrible treatment at the hands of her father in Apollonius (ἐς χεῖρας ἰοῦσαν | Αἰήτεω λώβῃ πολυπήμονι δῃωθῆναι, ‘falling into the hands of Aietes I am killed with painful mutilation’, A.R. .–), while from a different perspective Aietes and the Colchians regard Jason and the Argonauts as having violated Medea (and the king’s power over his unmarried daughter).

Straight Justice The violence and transgressive behaviour of many of the kings and leaders in Herodotus and Apollonius contrasts sharply with the emphasis on the perfect virtue of the king in Hellenistic theorising on kingship, which highlights the importance of royal self-control, wisdom and above all justice. This positive perspective on monarchy and monarchs and the royal virtue of justice does, nevertheless, find echoes in the Argonautica. For example, there is a comic version of the connection of kingship with justice in the description of the king of the Mossynoecians, where failing to reach the expected standard of straight judgements leads to the punishment of the king himself:

 

 See pp. ,  above. See pp. – above. On the Mossynoecians see also above pp. –. Apollonius also engages with the notion of the justice of kings at the beginning of book , where the language used to describe Amycus inverts and perverts the normal depiction of kingly justice. Amycus announces to the Argonauts that ‘it is the law’ (θέσμιόν ἐστιν, A.R. .) that every visitor must box against him, promising them dire consequences ‘if you trample on my laws’ (ἐμὰς πατέοιτε θέμιστας, A.R. .; cf. A.R. .). Polydeuces echoes this language of law and justice when he declares that ‘we will comply with your laws’ (θεσμοῖς γὰρ ὑπείξομεν, A.R. .). As we have seen, however, Amycus is anything but a just king of the kind whose benefits Odysseus describes to Penelope.



Straight Justice αὐτὰρ ἐν ὑψίστῳ βασιλεὺς μόσσυνι θαάσσων ἰθείας πολέεσσι δίκας λαοῖσι δικάζει, σχέτλιος. ἢν γάρ πού τί θεμιστεύων ἀλίτηται, λιμῷ μιν κεῖν’ ἦμαρ ἐνικλείσαντες ἔχουσιν.

(A.R. . )

But sitting in the highest mossyne the king gives straight judgements for the many people, the wretch: if he errs in his judgements no doubt they keep him shut up hungry for that day.

However, the most important portrayal of royal justice in the Argonautica is that of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, a monarch who stands out precisely for his straight justice, and who is depicted as welcoming, together with his queen Arete, the Argonauts in their flight from Colchis in Argonautica book . The harmonious relationship between Alcinous and Arete has itself been read as having resonances with the ‘real-world context’ of Ptolemaic kingship, since it has been seen as from one point of view a convenient mythological analogue for some aspects of the Ptolemaic monarchy, such as brother–sister marriage (at least on some interpretations of Od. .–: Ἀρήτη δ’ ὄνομ’ ἐστὶν ἐπώνυμον, ἐκ δὲ τοκήων | τῶν αὐτῶν οἵ περ τέκον Ἀλκίνοον βασιλῆα, ‘She is called Arete, from the same parents as bore King Alcinous’), and also the pattern of ‘hegemonic binary’ or shared rule Mori has suggested was the approved situation for the Ptolemaic court. There is also a clear parallel with Hellenistic royal practice in Alcinous’ mediation in book  between the wishes of Jason and (especially) Medea, and the demands of the pursuing Colchians who themselves arrive shortly afterwards (A.R. .–) determined to repatriate Medea and prepared for battle (A.R. .–). Alcinous is attempting to avoid νεῖκος (‘war’, A.R. .) with Aietes, whose reach is long, and to resolve the dispute between the Argonauts and the Colchians without conflict: ἀλλά σφεας κατέρυκεν ἐπειγομένους πολέμοιο κρείων Ἀλκίνοος. λελίητο γὰρ ἀμφοτέροισιν δηιοτῆτος ἄνευθεν ὑπέρβια νείκεα λῦσαι.

(A.R. . )





The most natural interpretation of τοκῆες is ‘parents’, though it can have a looser sense of ancestors (τέκον, ‘bore’ is not so easy to explain away). If they are siblings (or could be interpreted thus) there is therefore an echo of the situation of Philadelphus and Arsinoe II. On the relationship of Alcinous and Arete in the Od., see Heubeck, West & Hainsworth  ad loc. Cf. also Hunter : , . Mori a: – and see pp. – above on Hypsipyle’s relationship to this model.



Kings and Leaders

King Alcinous held them back, though they were eager for war, because he wanted to resolve the violent quarrel for both sides without conflict.

This recalls the arbitration as a third party of Hellenistic kings in disputes such as that between Samos and Priene in the s BC, which was carried out by Lysimachus, in which he made a judgement about the disputed territory of Anaea in Asia Minor. A similar political intervention (though not that of an independent third party) is detailed by Isocrates in his Nicocles: Nicocles, king on Cyprus, presents himself as calming and mollifying two hostile groups, both a hostile Persian king and the Cyprians (Nic. .–), which is achieved in part through the king’s justice towards the islanders. Nevertheless, in a pattern we have already observed, further parallels and intertexts complicate the presentation of Alcinous (and Arete) as just rulers in the Argonautica and heavily ironise Alcinous’ attempts to avoid conflict, war and bloodshed. The bedroom scene between Alcinous and Arete in book  in which they discuss the fate of Medea strongly echoes, as we have seen, the conversation between Darius and Atossa in Herodotus book  in which Atossa convinces Darius to consider Greece as a military target, which is one of the beginnings of the chain of events which leads to the conflict between Greeks and Persians. This puts Alcinous in the position of Darius, the Persian Great King and one of the most prominent monarchs in the Histories; the Herodotean example-model works alongside the adoption of a Homeric character to modify his presentation in the Argonautica. But the scene of Alcinous’ judgement in the Argonautica has another problematic intertext which also makes his Argonautic portrayal yet more complex and more troubling. Apollonius’ Alcinous lays great stress on the dike (‘justice’) involved in his decision, which develops not only the frequent association of kings with justice in Hellenistic 

   

On Alcinous’ arbitration as recalling Hellenistic royal mediation, see further Mori a: , who provides further examples, including an offer on the part of Ptolemy Philadelphus to arbitrate between Rome and Carthage in the first Punic war (cf. App. Sic. ). See further on interstate arbitration in the Hellenistic world Ager . See Shipley : . Cf. Mori a: –, who lays great stress on the lack of bloodshed in Alcinous’ resolution in A.R. . See pp. – above on the echoes of Hdt. . at A.R. .–. On the extensive modification alongside reminiscence of the Odyssey in the Argonautica’s Phaeacian episode, see especially Dufner : –. As Dufner notes (), the ‘Phaeacian international relations’ depicted in Alcinous’ arbitration between Argonauts and Colchians plays a crucial role in creating a much more ‘realistic’ portrayal of the Phaeacians than that found in the Odyssey.

Straight Justice



(and earlier Greek) thinking about kingship, but in particular closely echoes one of the most famous and important descriptions of royal justice, the straight justice of Hesiod’s just king in the Works and Days, and the consequences of peace developed there: ἀλλὰ Διὸς δείδοικα δίκην ἰθεῖαν ἀτίσσαι.

(A.R. .)

But I am afraid to treat lightly the straight justice of Zeus. τῶ μ’ ἐπέοικε δίκην, ἥ τις μετὰ πᾶσιν ἀρίστη ἔσσεται ἀνθρώποισι, δικαζέμεν· οὐδέ σε κεύσω.

(A.R. . )

Therefore it is right for me to give a judgement which will seem the best to all men. I will not hide it from you. Οἳ δὲ δίκας ξείνοισι καὶ ἐνδήμοισι διδοῦσιν ἰθείας καὶ μή τι παρεκβαίνουσι δικαίου, τοῖσι τέθηλε πόλις, λαοὶ δ’ ἀνθεῦσιν ἐν αὐτῇ· εἰρήνη δ’ ἀνὰ γῆν κουροτρόφος, οὐδέ ποτ’ αὐτοῖς ἀργαλέον πόλεμον τεκμαίρεται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς· (Hes. Op.  ) Those who give straight judgements to foreigners and natives and do not deviate from justice at all, their city flourishes, and the people in it flower. Child rearing peace is across the land and far sighted Zeus never decrees painful war for them.

The verbal echoes here (δίκην ἰθεῖαν ~ δίκας . . . ἰθείας, δίκην . . . δικαζέμεν ~ δίκας . . . διδοῦσιν) are strikingly close to the Hesiodic passage (much more so than to the similar description at Od. .–, for example). The details of the Hesiodic intertexts are crucial: the straight-judging king in Hesiod gives his judgements to ξείνοισι (‘foreigners’) as well as ἐνδήμοισι (‘natives’, Op. ), which is precisely what Alcinous is striving to do in the corresponding passage in the Argonautica, and the just king is rewarded with peace rather than war (which is Alcinous’ aim). The intertexts here with both Herodotus and Hesiod work to undermine Alcinous’ noble intentions by emphasising the very different outcome his decision will have from the straight justice of the Hesiodic king. In Hesiod Zeus does not mark out war for the straight-judging king, but Alcinous’ concern to avert a potential war with Aietes, and give a straight   

See pp. – above. See on the Hesiodic intertexts Hunter :  (‘Alcinous plays the role of a Hesiodic king who delivers straight justice’). Cf. Livrea : –. As Arete argues, Greece and the Argonauts are ‘nearby’ (ἐγγύθι, A.R. .–) but Aietes is unknown to them and far away: only his reputation has reached the Phaeacians (A.R. .–).



Kings and Leaders

judgement himself, has terrible, unHesiodic consequences. The arbitration of Alcinous brings about, in the first place, the future family tragedy of Jason and Medea, of which this part of the Argonautica has clear, unambiguous echoes. Alcinous makes reference in his reasoning for not returning Medea to the Colchians both to future children (A.R. .–), which Alcinous declares he will not hand over to ‘enemies’ (δῄοισιν), and separating Medea from her husband (A.R. .–). Medea, of course, will prove to be her own children’s worst enemy in the Medea, when she kills them as a result of being abandoned by Jason (cf. Creon’s words to her, λυπῇ δὲ λέκτρων ἀνδρὸς ἐστερημένη, ‘you are distressed because you have been separated from your husband’s bed’, Medea ). The actions of Jason and Medea in the earlier kin-killing of Apsyrtus are also reminiscent of the child-slaying in Euripides, while the flight to Circe recalls the flight to Corinth after the killing of Pelias. But the problematising of Alcinous’ arbitration goes further still: the future conflict between Jason and Medea foreshadowed in the Argonautica is a personal version of the conflict between Greeks and non-Greeks, and is one of the events cited in the opening sections of the Histories as implicated, on the Persian view, in causing the clash between East and West, through the tit-for-tat abduction of women by Greeks and non-Greeks (Greek Io taken by the Phoenicians, Phoenician Europa by the Greeks, as also Colchian Medea, then Greek Helen by the Trojans, Hdt. .–). Alcinous, from the perspective of a reader of the Argonautica familiar with Herodotus, has the chance to break this sequence, but he does not. He does not know, of course, of the near or far consequences of his action, investing his decision with a species of tragic irony: his judgement can be read as leading itself not to peace but to war. The description of Aietes 

   

See the detailed treatment in the Introduction, pp. – above. Cf. the very different perspective of Mori a: , who does not think the Argonautica alludes to Medea’s child-killing in Euripides. Mori objects to ‘ironic’ readings of Jason and Medea in terms of their later history beyond the epic (a: esp. –), and suggests (for example) an unironic, unEuripidean reading of the presentation of the Ariadne parallel by Jason to Medea at A.R. .– (a: –). A strong impulse for such unironic readings of Jason and Medea may be the desire to read the epic against the background of contemporary Ptolemaic politics, but I have suggested that the Argonautica still resonates with echoes of the ‘real-world context’ of Hellenistic kingship and politics, but employs such echoes as part of its distancing and problematising of the mythological figures in the epic. As Richard Hunter has put it, ‘The action of Euripides’ tragedy hangs over the epic like a cloud about to burst’ (Hunter : ). See also the comparison of Medea to a mother of dead children at A.R. .–. For the Argonautica developing this picture of the origins of the conflict of Greek and non-Greek as described in the Herodotean proem, see Dufner : – and also pp. – above. From a Herodotean perspective, to the greatest war yet known, Hdt. .–.

Conclusion



in terms reminiscent of the Persian Great King (no one is βασιλεύτερος, ‘more kingly’, A.R. .; he is able ‘bring war against Greece, though he is far away’, A.R. .) by Alcinous himself is also relevant. It is not in fact Aietes whose decision will lead to war between Greeks and nonGreeks, but Alcinous himself. The parallels with the bedroom scene of Darius and Atossa are therefore also very significant: Alcinous resembles Darius at the very moment Greece comes to the attention of the Great King just when he himself also becomes part of the chain of causes leading to the Persian Wars. It is important here too to consider that one half of the greatest element of kingship is (alongside swift justice) continual peace, according to Letter of Aristeas : Alcinous’ decision will, however, bring war. The rich literary texture of the Argonautica works to complicate the presentation of not only Jason and Medea but even Alcinous. Even in Alcinous, then, monarchical dike is problematised.

Conclusion Both Herodotus and Apollonius are intensely interested in kings, leaders and their various qualities and characteristics. One important neglected model for the presentation of kings and leaders in the Argonautica is Herodotus, whose depiction of monarchy and monarchical power (and its attendant problems, dangers and shortcomings), both in general (especially as characterised by Otanes in the constitutional debate) and in the portrayal of particular kings, including Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes, forms an important reference-point for Apollonius (and his readers). The Argonautica in turn depicts a range of violent and hubristic kings, such as Pelias, Amycus and Aietes. But the presentation of problematic leaders in the epic extends beyond these traditional villains of the Argonautic myth. Jason too displays troubling characteristics which recall the transgressions of Herodotean kings (such as the killing of Apsyrtus), and even Alcinous (and his queen, Arete) are heavily problematised, since their intervention in the story of Jason and Medea leads directly to the kin-murder of their children at the hands of Medea and indirectly (in the Persian view of the hostilities between of Greek and non-Greek) to the conflict between East and West the cause of which it is the project of the Histories to investigate.  

  ἕκαθέν περ, ἐφ’ Ἑλλάδι νεῖκος ἄγοιτο. See pp. – above. See pp. – above. In part one might see this as a partial development of the (complex) portrayal of the Phaeacians in the Odyssey, who observe the rules of xenia but are nonetheless punished by Poseidon, with the connivance of Zeus Xeinios (Od. .–).



Kings and Leaders

The engagement with Herodotean kings and the picture of monarchy in the Histories is one part of the complication of the portrayal in the Argonautica of kings and leaders and the consequent distancing of them as straightforward exemplars or models for Ptolemaic kingship or as straightforwardly promoting aspects of Ptolemaic ideology, particularly when these kings and leaders are read against the background of wider Hellenistic kingship ideology. As we have seen, aspects of Ptolemaic and Hellenistic royal practices and institutions are reflected in the Argonautica, but these are distorted and problematised in such a way as to complicate the exemplary potential of characters such as Jason (e.g. in the handling of the echoes of the Macedonian acclamation of a successor in the election of the leader scene in A.R. ) or Alcinous, whose arbitration between Argonauts and Colchians recalls Hellenistic monarchical mediation, but is itself strikingly problematised by the ultimate consequences of that arbitration: kin-murder and war. It is clear, then, that Apollonius in his epic does reflect both Hellenistic kingship ideology (broadly construed) and particular aspects of the practices and politics of especially the Ptolemaic kingdom (including Egyptian imagery and idea about kingship). But I suggest that the picture the epic presents of kingship is far from the idealised portrayal of kingship which Mori has suggested is offered by Aratus’ Phaenomena. Kings and leaders in the Argonautica, by contrast, are presented in deeply complex fashion and problematised in such a way as to suggest they cannot be read as straightforward exemplars or representatives of the ideology of any Hellenistic kingdom. Herodotus plays, as he does elsewhere for the Argonautica, a key role in this (further) frustration of exemplarity. 

See pp. – above for the problematic presentation of exemplarity within the Argonautica and the destabilising of connections between mythological past and Hellenistic present.

Conclusions and Consequences

I have argued in this book that in the Argonautica we can see extensive and pervasive engagement with the genre of historiography, in particular with the Histories of Herodotus, which functions both as the modello-codice for historiographical discourse in general and as the particular modelloesemplare for a number of crucial passages in the epic. A good example of this double relationship is provided by the different ways in which Apollonius makes use of Herodotean ethnography, which is among the most distinctive (and influential) aspects of Herodotus’ historical writing. The Argonautica, I have suggested, views the mythological events of the heroic age which it narrates from an ethnographic perspective (quite different from the situation we find in the Homeric epics), in which the narrator explains the practices and customs of heroes such as Jason in a way strongly reminiscent of the kind of language used by Herodotus when explaining the nomoi of historical peoples (both Greek and non-Greek). Particular individual Herodotean descriptions of people, such as those of the Egyptians and Persians, are also engaged with directly by Apollonius in his portrayal of not only non-Greek peoples such as the Colchians, but also in his depiction of Greeks such as Jason. In part, as we have explored, the adoption of an ethnographic perspective and the engagement with particular ethnographies is a means for articulating the Argonautica’s distance from its epic modello-codice, Homer (especially the Odyssey). But the importance of Herodotus as modello-codice and modelloesemplare for Apollonius goes far beyond ethnography. As well as the best example of ethnographic descriptions of foreign peoples, Herodotus was recognised in ancient critical thinking about history as a historian crucial to the development of the genre of historiography, as the figure responsible for combining local histories into a greater, Panhellenic narrative and as providing a model for historical narratives of the distant past. All of these aspects are important for Apollonius, for whom Herodotus functions as the representative model of historiographical discourse, as we have seen, 



Conclusions and Consequences

for example, in the attitude to sources developed in the Argonautica (as exemplified in the Catalogue of Argonauts), which Apollonius uses to underline how different the authority of his narrator is from that of the Muse-inspired narrator of Homer. This historiographical interest in sources is then combined later in the Argonautica with a more characteristically epic authority in the Muses, which serves to problematise both sources of authority, since the question of the accuracy and veracity of the narrator’s sources (and his judgement of them) is therefore raised with regard to Apollonius’ narrator in a way it is not in Homer, and the incongruity of approaching mythological events with a quasihistoriographical interest in sources and evidence is emphasised. Explanations, which form a central focus of Herodotus’ historical project, are also important for gauging the presence in Apollonius of elements which remind the readers of historiographical discourse. Aetiological explanations typical of history, such as those found in Herodotus explaining present customs or practices, are a good example: these form a crucial reference point for the readers of the Argonautica, since Apollonius portrays his narrator as constructing explanations of the events of the Argonauts’ voyage from the still visible signs or traces of that past journey, but also making clear the possibility of error in reading those signs, in such a way as to contrast sharply with aetiologies in poets such as Pindar which forge an authorising connection between mythic event and present feature or practice. But in doing this Apollonius emphasises the fragility of connections between past and present in the epic, part of a wider fracturing of the notion of exemplarity in the poem and one which advertises the contingency and uncertainty of explanations of the present in terms of the past. Apollonius also treats human motivation and its connection with action in a manner reminiscent of Herodotus. This underlines the difficulty in reconstructing why individuals act as they do, which in a mythological epic is a further example of employing a mode more closely associated with historiography, and doing so in such a way as to make problematic the reasons why characters act as they do, emphasising therefore the very different handling of motivation and its explanation in the Argonautica as compared with Homer, with profound consequences once more for the authority of the Apollonian narrator and for the nature of the Argonautica as an epic. With regard to the use of (passages from) Herodotus as a modelloesemplare for particular scenes, episodes or characters in the Argonautica, several important patterns have emerged. It is clear that we find patterns of intense intertextual engagement at crucial points in the epic, such as the

Conclusions and Consequences



start of the Argonauts’ expedition, key episodes such as the first (the visit to Lemnos) and the close of the poem. It is also possible to discern from a survey of the distribution of the passages in the Argonautica which employ Herodotus as a modello-esemplare parts of the epic which engage less extensively with particular passages from Herodotus, most notably the majority of book , where the principal use of Herodotus as an examplemodel comes in the description Jason gives to Medea of Thessaly and the characterisation of Aietes as a violent, problematic king, reminiscent of several Herodotean monarchs or tyrants. Book  differs from the rest of the epic in other ways too, of course, not least in the fact that its action is focused on one location, Colchis, in a way that is not shared by the other three books, which depict the Argonauts mostly on the move. There are, however, other sections of the epic which are also less intense in their engagement with Herodotus as a modello-esemplare, including (in book ) the description of the Argo’s preparations to leave which follow the Catalogue, the Song of Orpheus and the episode of the rape of Hylas and the consequent loss of Heracles. In book  Herodotus is not prominent as an intertext in the description of the Clashing Rocks, nor in book  the episode of the getting of the Golden Fleece or in the description of the travelling by Scylla, Charybdis and the Planctae. This distribution confirms the view that Herodotus does not play the role of an intertextual reference-point to the same degree as the Odyssey and suggests that those parts of the epic which do engage with the Histories (especially in book  the proem, the Catalogue of Argonauts, the Lemnian episode, the aftermath of the Argonauts’ visit to Cyzicus; in book  those of Amycus, Phineus, Lycus and the travels along the Black Sea coast; in book  the escape from Colchis, the travels on the Eridanus, the visit to the Phaeacians, the Libyan episode, Euphemus’ dream and the close of the poem) do so with particular aims in mind, including the characterisation of particular individuals or places and the modification of Homeric characters, scenes or characteristics (as we have observed with regard to the Catalogue of Argonauts or the portrayal of Alcinous). When one considers   



Though, of course, such a survey is necessarily a very rough-and-ready means of judging the presence of Herodotus in different part of the Argonautica. See pp. –, – above. On the characteristics of book  as compared with the rest of the epic see, e.g., Hunter : –. Book  develops tragic models more explicitly (see Hunter : –) than other parts of the epic (partly because of its more static character); this may also explain the relative absence of Herodotean example-models. Although the Election of the Leader episode’s example-models include two episodes from Xenophon’s Anabasis. See pp. – above.



Conclusions and Consequences

in turn the overall distribution of the adaptation of features of Herodotean historiographical discourse, where Apollonius is employing Herodotus as a historiographical modello-codice rather than as a model for particular passages, one can see a picture of broad engagement throughout the epic, particularly in the ethnographic attitude displayed to the heroic world, with particularly intense engagement at certain points, such as the proem of book  and the Catalogue of Argonauts, the ethnographic descriptions in book , the geographical passages in book  (e.g. on the Eridanus or Drepane), and the proem to book . Here again the pattern we have seen of book  engaging less intensely with Herodotus is repeated, though there are clear exceptions, such as the ethnographic description of Colchian burial customs in book . Particularly important or significant Herodotean logoi are also regularly engaged with, including the opening Croesus logos, which is one of the many beginnings in Herodotus which are of interest to Apollonius (for whom narrative beginnings are important from the very start of the epic). If one considers the distribution of sections from Herodotus which function as example-models in the Argonautica, one can see that Herodotus book  as a whole is particularly important, including the opening five chapters, but extending to the depiction of a number of Herodotean kings, such as Astyages and Cyrus as well as Croesus. In books  and , descriptions of kings are also prominent reference points, especially book ’s account of Sesostris and the bedroom scene with Darius and Atossa in book , while the sections of book  describing Xerxes’ forces and his progress from East to West are also exploited by Apollonius. This suggests that Herodotus plays an important role as a means for suggesting the complexities and limitations of the Argonautica’s own kings and leaders. We have seen, indeed, that the epic’s depictions of kings and leaders engage in detail with different kings and the limitations of monarchy in Herodotus. This is true both in general (as reflecting, for example, the criticism of monarchy made by Otanes in the Persian constitutional debate), but also in the evocation of particular Herodotean kings as reference-points for the depiction of particular Argonautic characters, such as the parallels with the behaviour of Astyages or Xerxes in the murder of Apsyrtus by Jason, or the echoes of Darius in the picture of Alcinous. Thus the widespread and various use of the Histories as a modello-esemplare in the 

Herodotus’ presence as an example-model is not limited to passages describing kings: Apollonius makes extensive use, as we have seen, of Herodotus’ descriptions of Libya and Thera, esp. at the end of A.R. .

Conclusions and Consequences



Argonautica reinforces and is reinforced by its use as the historiographical modello-codice, since readers who detect the use of aspects reminiscent of historiographical discourse are prompted to look for patterning after a specific passage from historical writing, and readers attuned to intertextual engagement with particular episodes or passages become more likely to appreciate the use of aspects of the historiographical mode. We have also explored the consequences, for our interpretation of the Argonautica, of the presence of detailed interaction of various kinds with Herodotus and historiographical discourse. In the first place, our investigation shows that the complex literary texture of the poem extends to farreaching engagement with several characteristic features of a prose genre, historiography, not simply to a range of poetic texts and genres. This is not (of course) to claim that the Argonautica is in any sense history, or to deny the central importance of the Homeric poems as intertextual reference points for the Argonautica’s readers; rather it shows that the range of texts with which a Hellenistic poem can interact in significant ways is not restricted to any particular genre or type of text, and it serves as a reminder of the connections and affinities between epic and history (though the differences between them remain crucial to the ways in which historiographical discourse is evoked and transformed in the Argonautica). This study also fits in, therefore, to the greater awareness which has developed over the last thirty years or so of the wide range of texts encompassed and absorbed in Hellenistic poetry, but also forms part of the critical move away from seeing texts as simply ‘sources’ for Hellenistic poets to mine; rather intertexts are matrices or models which can be exploited in complex and various ways. The exploration of the engagement with Herodotus in terms of modello-codice and modello-esemplare should have made this complexity and variety clearer still. It is also clear that the Argonautica is very different in character from a local epic or ktisis-poem, focusing on one locale or people (as exemplified by the epics of Rhianus of Bene or the ktisis-poems of Apollonius himself ). It displays a similar relationship to such locally focused poems (and their prose equivalents) in the Hellenistic period as Herodotus does to local historians in the conception of the development of the genre found (for example) in Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The Argonautica shares the Panhellenic perspective of Herodotus, but it also crucially introduces into the epic a marked degree of instability in the connections between mythological past and Hellenistic present, in which the model of Herodotus is crucial, as a reference point for the readers for the construction of a narrative from the gathering and weighing up of evidence about and



Conclusions and Consequences

accounts of the past. In the Argonautica it is clear that signs or traces of that past can be misread, but more generally the picture created by Apollonius is one of an Argonautic narrator who contrasts sharply with the authoritative, critical intelligence of Herodotus and who is clearly not a ‘master of signs’. Hence the Apollonian narrator’s authority and ability to read the signs of the past correctly and judge the sources from which he is constructing his narrative is problematised in the epic. The possibility of error in reading the signs of the past and the undermining of the authority of the Argonautic narrator are part of the development in the Argonautica of a pronounced temporal (and geographical) gap between the figures of mythological epic and the Hellenistic present of Apollonius, the Ptolemies and the readers of the poem. As we have seen, the poem narrates (in a very significant location near the conclusion of the epic) the foundation of Thera from Lemnos, as one of the consequences of the Argonautic expedition, but stops short of telling the usual second part of the same narrative, the foundation of the Libyan city of Cyrene from Thera. This underlines the aetiological gap between the Argonauts and the Hellenistic, especially Ptolemaic, present. In this Apollonius demonstrates a different manner of engaging with the Ptolemaic context in which he was writing his epic from that which we find in other Hellenistic poets, such as Callimachus. In the Coma Berenices (Aetia fr.  Pf. =  Harder), for example, the final aetion of the Aetia ends in the Ptolemaic kingdom and the city of Alexandria, since the lock itself (which narrates the aetion) is cut from the head of Berenice II, wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes (cf. e.g. fr. . Pf.). But Apollonius pointedly does not bring his epic to the aetiological conclusion of Cyrene, as Susan Stephens has noted. The gap remains, and it is one which points to the wider problems explored in the Argonautica (and in this book) in the potential of characters, features, episodes from the epic to act as straightforward exemplars or analogues for Ptolemaic kings, kingdoms, institutions and so forth. This gap, I suggest, needs to be incorporated into readings of the poem against its Ptolemaic context. The figure of Heracles is a good example to think with in this regard, given his ideological significance for the Ptolemies, and the explicit engagement with this mythological character in Hellenistic poems such as Theocritus , the encomium for Ptolemy Philadelphus. In that poem both Ptolemy I and Alexander the Great have a place in the halls of Zeus, as does Heracles, who is said to ‘rejoice in the sons of his sons’ 

See further Stephens : –.



Stephens : .

Conclusions and Consequences



(i.e. Alexander and Ptolemy), who have been declared immortal (vv. –). Both Alexander and Ptolemy I (and hence also Philadelphus and Euergetes) trace their descent back to Heracles (ἀμφότεροι δ’ ἀριθμεῦνται ἐς ἔσχατον Ηρακλῆα, v. ). However, while Theocritus (in an explicitly encomiastic poem) engages directly with Heracles as an ancestor of the Ptolemies, Apollonius has him leave the Argonautica at the end of book  and then float out of the Argonauts’ (and the readers’) reach: his creation of the Libyan spring after the killing of Ladon in book , for example, which takes place the day before the Argonauts pass through the same area (.–), saves his erstwhile comrades from dying of thirst (.–) but underlines his absence from the epic, as does the image of Lynceus thinking he has seen Heracles, just, in the far distance: ἀτὰρ τότε γ’ Ἡρακλῆα μοῦνον ἀπειρεσίης τηλοῦ χθονὸς εἴσατο Λυγκεὺς τὼς ἰδέειν, ὥς τίς τε νέῳ ἐνὶ ἤματι μήνην ἢ ἴδεν ἢ ἐδόκησεν ἐπαχλύουσαν ἰδέσθαι.

(A.R. .  )

But at that time at least Lynceus thought he had seen Heracles alone far off in that land without limit, in the way someone on the first day of the month sees, or thinks he sees, the moon behind the clouds.

But this serves to emphasise the gap created between this figure of Ptolemaic ideological importance and the narrative of the Argonauts as told in the Argonautica. This in turn is a useful model for the way in which Ptolemaic institutions and ideology are reflected in the poem (as they undoubtedly are, as we have seen), but also how they are distanced, distorted and complicated. Good examples include the play with Hellenistic royal arbitration which we find with Alcinous’ fateful decision not to return Medea to the Colchians on Drepane in book , or the ironising of Macedonian acclamation in the election of the leader scene in book  (in which Heracles plays a key role before he abandons the expedition). It is important to note that such problematising takes place in part through echoes of the portrayals of particular Herodotean kings and more broadly through reflecting the criticisms of monarchy explicit in Otanes’ argument in the constitutional debate in book  and implicit in the shortcomings which monarchs regularly display in Herodotus, and also that such problematising extends to characters such as Jason, Medea, Hypsipyle and 

See e.g. Theocritus .– (ἀνδρῶν δ’ αὖ Πτολεμαῖος ἐνὶ πρώτοισι λεγέσθω | καὶ πύματος καὶ μέσσος· ὁ γὰρ προφερέστατος ἀνδρῶν, ‘[A]mong men in turn let Ptolemy be spoken at the beginning and at the end and in the middle, since he is the foremost of men’).



Conclusions and Consequences

Alcinous, as well as the more obviously problematic figures such as Amycus or Aietes. A political reading of the Argonautica, I have argued, does not entail rejecting its relentless foreshadowing of the future of Jason, Medea and others. It is possible to read the Argonautica against its socio-political contexts in a way which does justice both to the interaction with the Ptolemaic and Egyptian contexts of the Argonautica and the circumstances of the production and reception of the poem, and to the main narrative of the epic (and, crucially, its intertexts) in such a way that does not privilege these contexts over the details of the text. I have argued that the epic’s complex portrayal of its characters and their flaws, its treatment of the actions of the Argonauts (and others) alongside the consequences of those actions, the complicating of the narrator’s narrative authority, the problematising of its kings and leaders, and so forth works to frustrate any attempt to use the figures of the heroic age as straightforward models for the political practices or historical individuals of the Hellenistic world. This is the significance of the choice of a heroic epic without an explicit mention of the Ptolemies. It is worth emphasising that in the Argonautica there is no named or explicit praise of any ruler or regime, and no straightforward relationship between the poem and a particular patron. Apollonius points us to the gap between the heroic age of the Argonauts and the Hellenistic period, not because the Argonauts have left no trace, but because of the extreme difficulty of using Jason, Medea and even Alcinous as models for any Ptolemy or Arsinoe or Berenice. Herodotus, I have argued, is central to the undermining of the possibility of using these characters as uncomplicated analogues for Hellenistic individuals: even apparently positive models such as Alcinous strongly recall problematic Herodotean figures or narrative moments, while the force of much of the engagement with Herodotus is to draw attention to the problems inherent in monarchical power of any kind. It is for these reasons that the epic never reaches Cyrene, let alone Alexandria. The Argonautica is the most multi-layered, disruptive and unstable of epics: it is a demonstration of the difficulty (or impossibility) of successfully providing unproblematic exemplars for any Hellenistic king (or queen) through a heroic epic. 

 

Cf. e.g. Stephens : , ‘Whatever tergiversations of the plot [my italics], these anchoring moments prompt us to understand the tale not of the hero Jason nor of the Argonauts in general nor as a commentary on any (or many) of the previous tellings but of the Argo crew’s specific role in guaranteeing the place of Greeks in Libya.’ Cf. the assimilation of the epic to encomium or encomiastic hymn at Regan : –. See pp. – above.

Conclusions and Consequences



Alan Cameron has dispelled the phantom of large-scale encomiastic Hellenistic epic on particular kings: perhaps a contributory factor to its continuing absence in the Hellenistic period was Apollonius’ problematising of the exemplary potential of mythical figures as models for individual kings or kingdoms in the Argonautica. This may also have been a crucial part of the importance of the Argonautica for Apollonius’ closest reader, Virgil, although Virgil’s solution to the challenges of writing epic in the midst of a state dominated by a powerful ruler was importantly different again. But I would like to urge once more the parallel with Virgilian scholarship which I touched on in the introduction to this book: as it is necessary to construct a reading of the Aeneid which is able to encompass not only its explicitly Augustan elements but also the irreducibly difficult, problematic and complicating aspects of the text, so too a reading of the Argonautica should be able to account for not only its echoes of its Ptolemaic and Egyptian contexts, but also the difficulty and complexity inherent in the text. 





Cameron : –, arguing that Ziegler : – (cf. Lloyd-Jones : –) overestimates the amount of full-scale epic composed. It remained possible, of course, to write (shorter) encomiastic court poetry: see Barbantani : –,  (on the encomiastic elegy SH ). The relationship between Argonautica and Aeneid is an extremely deep and complex one: see in general (and for a range of perspectives) Hunter : –, Beye , Nelis , , Mori a: –, Kelly . See further esp. pp. – above.

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. ‘“Posidippus” at court: the contribution of the Hippika of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII  to the ideology of Ptolemaic kingship’, in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford):  . Fantuzzi, M., Hunter, R. . Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge. Farrell, J. . ‘Classical genre in theory and practice’, New Literary History :  . Fearn, D. . ‘Narrating ambiguity: murder and Macedonian allegiance (. )’, in E. Irwin, E. Greenwood (eds.), Reading Herodotus (Cam bridge):  . Feeney, D. C. . The Gods in Epic. Oxford. Fehling, D. . Herodotus and his ‘Sources’: Citation, Invention and Narrative Art (translated by J. G. Howie). Leeds. . ‘The art of Herodotus and the margins of the world’, in Z. von Martels (ed.), Travel Fact and Travel Fiction: Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Scholarly Discovery, and Observation in Travel Writing (Leiden):  . Fitzsimons, S. . ‘The leadership styles of the Persian kings in Herodotus’ Histories’, unpublished dissertation, University of Manchester. Fleischer, R. . ‘Hellenistic royal iconography on coins’, in P. Bilde, T. Engberg Pedersen, L. Hannestad, J. Zahle (eds.), Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship (Aarhus):  . Flower, M., Marincola, J. . Herodotus: Histories Book IX. Cambridge. Fornara, C. . The Nature of History in Greece and Rome. Berkeley. Forsdyke, S. . ‘Herodotus, political history and political thought’, in C. Dewald, J. Marincola (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cam bridge):  . Foster, E., Lateiner, D. (ed.), a. Thucydides and Herodotus. Oxford. Foster, E., Lateiner, D. b. ‘Introduction’, in E. Foster, D. Lateiner (eds.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford):  . Fowler, D. . ‘On the shoulders of giants: intertextuality and classical studies’, MD :  . Fowler, R. . ‘Herodotos and his contemporaries’, JHS :  . . ‘Early Historiē and literacy’, in N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford):  . . ‘Gods in early Greek historiography’, in J. N. Bremmer, A. Erskine (eds.), The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations (Edinburgh):  . . Early Greek Mythography II: Commentary. Oxford. Fränkel, H. . Apollonii Rhodii Argonautica. Oxford. . Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios. Munich. Fraser, P. . Cities of Alexander the Great. Oxford. Frede, D. . ‘Necessity, chance, and “what happens for the most part” in Aristotle’s Poetics’, in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics (Princeton):  . Fusillo, M. . Il tempo delle Argonautiche. Rome.

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. ‘Apollonius Rhodius as “inventor” of the interior monologue’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . Genette, G. . Narrative Discourse (translated by J. Lewin). Oxford. Giangiulio, M. . ‘Constructing the past: colonial traditions and the writing of history. The case of Cyrene’, in N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford):  . Giangrande, G. . ‘“Arte allusiva” and Alexandrian epic poetry’, CQ :  . Giubilo, B. . ‘L’ ἀλήθεια e i suoi sinonimi nella poesia alessandrina (Callimaco, Teocrito, Apollonio Rodio, Eronda)’, unpublished dissertation, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’. Goldhill, S. . The Poet’s Voice. Cambridge. . The Invention of Prose. Oxford. Gould, J. . ‘Herodotus and religion’, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography. Oxford. Gozzoli, S. /. ‘Una teoria antica sull’origine della storiografia greca’, SCO /:  . Greenberg, J. . ‘Why can’t biologists read poetry? Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love’, Twentieth Century Literature :  . Griffin, J. . ‘Homeric words and speakers’, JHS :  . Griffiths, A. H. . ‘Euenius the negligent nightwatchman (Herodotus . )’, in R. Buxton (ed.), From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought (Oxford):  . . ‘Stories and storytelling in the Histories’, in C. Dewald, J. Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge):  . (in press). Herodotus: Histories Book III. Cambridge. Groten, F. . ‘Herodotus’ use of variant versions’, Phoenix :  . Gruen, E. . ‘Hellenistic kingship: puzzles, problems, and possibilities’, in P. Bilde, T. Engberg Pedersen, L. Hannestad, J. Zahle (eds.), Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship (Aarhus):  . . Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton and Oxford. Hainsworth, J. B. . The Iliad: A Commentary Volume III: Books  . Cambridge. Hall, J. M. . ‘Contested ethnicities: perceptions of Macedonia within evolv ing definitions of Greek identity’, in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge):  . Halliwell, S. . The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems. Princeton. Hamburger, K. . Logik der Dichtung, second edn. Stuttgart. Harder, M. A. . ‘Travel descriptions in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius’, in Z. von Martels (ed.), Travel Fact and Travel Fiction: Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Scholarly Discovery, and Observation in Travel Writing (Leiden):  .

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. ‘Intertextuality in Callimachus’ Aetia’, in L. Lehnus, F. Montanari (eds.), Callimaque (Geneva):  . . Callimachus: Aetia ( vols.). Oxford. . ‘Intertextuality as discourse: the discussion on poetry and poetics among Hellenistic Greek poets in the third century ’, in M. Bauks, W. Horowitz, A. Lange (eds.), Between Text and Text (Göttingen): 232 42. Harding, P. . Androtion and the Atthis: The Fragments. Oxford. . ‘Local history and Atthidography’, in J. Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Malden and Oxford):  . Harrison, T. . Divinity and History. Oxford. . ‘The cause of things: envy and the emotions in Herodotus’ Histories’, in D. Konstan, N. K. Rutter (eds.), Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh):  . Hartog, F. . The Mirror of Herodotus (translated by J. Lloyd). Berkeley. Haslam, M. W. . ‘Callimachus’ Hymns’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Callimachus (Leuven):  . Hazzard, R. . Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda. Toronto. Heubeck, A., West, S., Hainsworth, J. B. . A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey: Books I VIII, vol. . Oxford. Hexter, R. . ‘Literary history as a provocation to reception studies’, in C. Martindale, R. F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden and Oxford):  . Higbie, C. . The Lindian Chronicle and the Greek Creation of Their Past. Oxford. Hinds, S. . Allusion and Intertext. Cambridge. Hodkinson, O. . ‘Some distinguishing features of deliberate fictionality in Greek biographical narratives’, in P. Borghart, K. de Temmermann (eds.), Biography and Fictionality in the Greek Literary Tradition (Phrasis special issue .):  . Hollmann, A. . The Master of Signs: Signs and the Interpretation of Signs in Herodotus’ Histories. Cambridge and London. . ‘The manipulation of signs in Herodotos’ “Histories”’, TAPhA :  . Hopkinson, N. . A Hellenistic Anthology. Cambridge. Hornblower, S. . Commentary on Thucydides Volume I: Books I III. Oxford. . Commentary on Thucydides, Volume II: Books IV V.. Oxford. . ‘Herodotus and his sources of information’, in E. Bakker, I. J. F. de Jong, H. van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden):  . . Thucydides and Pindar. Oxford. . ‘Herodotus’ influence in antiquity’, in C. Dewald, J. Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge):  . . Commentary on Thucydides: Volume III: Books . .. Oxford. . Herodotus: Histories Book V. Cambridge. . Lykophron: Alexandra. Oxford.

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How, W. W., Wells, J. . A Commentary on Herodotus. Oxford. Hunter, R. L. . ‘Medea’s flight: the fourth book of the Argonautica’, CQ :  . . ‘“Short on heroics”: Jason in the Argonautica’, CQ :  . . Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III. Cambridge. . ‘Greek and non Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius’, in S. Saïd (ed.), ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ (Strasbourg):  . . ‘Writing the God: form and meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena’, MD :  . . The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies. Cambridge. . Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge. . Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Berkeley and Los Angeles. . ‘Theocritus and Moschus’, in I. J. F. de Jong, R. Nu¨nlist, A. M. Bowie (eds.), Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature (Leiden):  . . ‘The poetics of narrative in the Argonautica’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . . Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book IV. Cambridge. Hunter, R., Fuhrer, T. . ‘Imaginary gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus’, in L. Lehnus, F. Montanari (eds.), Callimaque (Geneva):  . Hutchinson, G. O. . Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford. . ‘The Aetia: Callimachus’ poem of knowledge’, ZPE :  . Immerwahr, H. . ‘Historical action in Herodotus’, TAPhA :  . . Form and Thought in Herodotus. Cleveland. Isager, S. . ‘The Salmakis inscription: some reactions to the edition princeps’, in S. Isager, P. Pedersen (eds.), The Salmakis Inscription and Hellenistic Halikarnassos (Odense):  . Iser, W. . Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology. Baltimore and London. Jacoby, F. . ‘Über die Entwicklung der griechischen Historiographie und den Plan einer neuen Sammlung der griechischen Historikerfragmente’, Klio :  . . Atthis: The Local Chronicles of Ancient Athens. Oxford. Jacques, J. M.  . ‘Apollonios de Memphis’, CCGR :  . Jauss, H. R. . Towards an Aesthetic of Reception (translated by T. Bahti). Brighton. Johnson, W. R. . Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s ‘Aeneid’. Berkeley. Karttunen, K. . ‘The ethnography of the fringes’, in E. Bakker, I. J. F. de Jong, H. van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden):  . Kelly, A. . ‘Apollonius and the end of the Aeneid’, CQ :  . Knight, V. . The Renewal of Epic. Leiden. Koenen, L. . ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’, in A. Bulloch, E. S. Gruen, A. A. Long, A. Stewart (eds.), Images and Ideologies (Berkeley):  .

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Malkin, I. . Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean. Cambridge. . ‘“Tradition” in Herodotus: the foundation of Cyrene’, in P. Derow, R. Parker (eds.), Herodotus and His World (Oxford):  . Marincola, J. . ‘Herodotean narrative and the narrator’s presence’, Arethusa :  . . Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge. . ‘Genre, convention and innovation in Greco Roman historiography’, in C. Kraus (ed.), The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Leiden)  . . Greek Historians. Oxford. . ‘Odysseus and the historians’, Syllecta Classica :  . Meyer, D. . ‘Apollonius as a Hellenistic geographer’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . Minton, W. W. . ‘Homer’s invocations of the Muses: traditional patterns’, TAPhA :  . Moles, J. . ‘Herodotus warns the Athenians’, PLLS :  . Mooney, G. W. . The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. London. Mori, A. . ‘Personal favor and public influence: Arete, Arsinoe II, and the Argonautica’, Oral Tradition :  . . ‘Jason’s reconciliation with Telamon: a moral exemplar in Apollonius’ Argonautica’, AJPh :  . a. The Politics of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica. Cambridge. b. ‘Piety and diplomacy in Apollonius’ Argonautica’, in P. R. McKechnie, P. Guillaume (eds.), Ptolemy Philadelphus and his World (Leiden):  . Morrison, A. D. . The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge. . ‘Callimachus’ Muses’, in B. Acosta Hughes, L. Lehnus, S. Stephens (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Callimachus (Leiden):  . Moyer, I. . ‘Berossos and Manetho’, in J. Haubold, G. B. Lanfranchi, R. Rollinger, R. Steele (eds.), The World of Berossos (Wiesbaden):  . Munson, R. V. . Telling Wonders. Ann Arbor. . ‘The trouble with the Ionians: Herodotus and the beginning of the Ionian Revolt’, in E. Irwin, E. Greenwood (eds.), Reading Herodotus (Cambridge):  . . ‘Who are Herodotus’ Persians?’, CW :  . Muntz, C. . ‘The sources of Diodorus Siculus, book ’, CQ :  . Murray, O. . ‘Aristeas and Ptolemaic kingship’, JThS :  . . ‘Hecataeus of Abdera and Pharaonic kingship’, JEA :  . . ‘Herodotus and Hellenistic culture’, CQ :  . . ‘Hellenistic royal symposia’, in P. Bilde, T. Engberg Pedersen, L. Hannestad, J. Zahle (eds.), Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship (Aarhus):  . . ‘Philosophy and monarchy in the Hellenistic world’, in T. Rajak, S. Pearce, J. Aitken, J. Dines (eds.), Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers (Berkeley):  .



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. ‘Ptolemaic royal patronage’, in P. R. McKechnie, P. Guillaume (eds.), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and His World (Leiden):  . Murray, P. . ‘Plato’s Muses’, in E. Spentzou, D. Fowler (eds.), Cultivating the Muse (Oxford):  . . ‘The Muses and their arts’, in P. Murray, P. Wilson (eds.), Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (Oxford):  . . ‘The Muses: creativity personified?’, in J. Herrin, E. Stafford (eds.), Personification in the Greek World (Aldershot):  . Nagy, G. . ‘Herodotus the Logios’, Arethusa :  . . Pindar’s Homer. Baltimore. Nelis, D. . Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Leeds. . ‘Apollonius and Virgil’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.) Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . Orth, E. . ‘Ein Fragment des Herodorus. Zu Demetrios par. ’, Philologische Wochenschrift :  . Paap, A. . De Herodoti reliquiis in papyris et membranis Aegyptiis servatis. Leiden. Paduana Faedo, L. . ‘L’inversione del rapporto Poeta Musa nella cultura ellenistica’, ASNP :  . Paduano, G. and Fusillo, M. . Le Argonautiche. Rome. Parry, A. . ‘The two voices of Virgil’s Aeneid’, Arion :  . Pasquali, G. . ‘Arte allusiva’, Italia chi scrive  :  . Pearson, L. . ‘Apollonius of Rhodes and the Old Geographers’, AJPh :  . . The Lost Historians of Alexander the Great. New York. Pelliccia, H. . ‘Sappho , Gorgias’ Helen, and the preface to Herodotus’ Histories’, YClS :  . Pelling, C. B. R. . ‘Thucydides’ Archidamus and Herodotus’ Artabanus’, BICS :  . . ‘East is East and West is West or are they? National stereotypes in Herodotus’, Histos  (internet publication). . ‘Speech and action: Herodotus’ debate on the constitutions’, PCPhS :  . . ‘Homer and Herodotus’, in M. J. Clarke, B. G. F. Currie , R. O. A. M. Lyne (eds.), Epic Interactions (Oxford):  . Pfeiffer, R.  . Callimachus. Vol. : Fragmenta, Vol. : Hymni et Epigrammata (Oxford). . History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford). Powers, N. . ‘Magic, wonder and scientific explanation in Apollonius, Argonautica . ’, PCPhS :  . Pratt, L. . Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics. Ann Arbor.

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Priestley, J. . Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture: Literary Studies in the Reception of the Histories. Oxford. Priestley, J., Zali, V. (eds.), . Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond. Leiden and Boston. Pritchett, W. K. . The Liar School of Herodotus. Amsterdam. Pucci, J. . The Full-Knowing Reader. New Haven. Purves, A. . Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative. Cambridge. Putnam, M. C. J. . The Poetry of the Aeneid. Cambridge. Raaflaub, K. . ‘Herodotus, political thought and the meaning of history’, Arethusa :  . . ‘Philosophy, science, politics: Herodotus and the intellectual trends of his time’, in E. Bakker, I. J. F. de Jong, H. van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden):  . Redfield, J. . ‘Herodotus the tourist’, CPh :  . Regan, A. . ‘The geography of kingship in Apollonius of Rhodes’, unpub lished dissertation, University of Michigan. Rengakos, A. . ‘Homerische Wörter bei Kallimachos’, ZPE :  . . Apollonios Rhodios und die antike Homererklärung. Munich. . ‘Apollonius Rhodius as a Homeric scholar’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . Rice, E. . The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Oxford. Richardson, S. . The Homeric Narrator. Nashville. Riemann, K. . ‘Das herodoteische Geschichtswerk in der Antike’, unpub lished dissertation, University of Munich. Robert, L. . ‘Une épigramme satirique d’Automédon et Athènes au début de l’empire’, REG :  . Robinson, D. . ‘Homeric philos: love of life and limbs, and friendship with one’s thumos’, in E. M. Craik (ed.), Owls to Athens (Oxford):  . Romm, J. S. . The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Princeton. . Herodotus. New Haven. Rood, T. . ‘Herodotus and foreign lands’, in C. Dewald, J. Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge):  . . ‘Black Sea variations: Arrian’s Periplus’, CCJ :  . Roy, C. S. . ‘The constitutional debate: Herodotus’ exploration of good government’, Histos :  . Rutherford, R. . ‘Structure and meaning in epic and historiography’, in E. Foster, D. Lateiner (eds.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford):  . Sacks, K. . Diodorus Siculus and the First Century. Princeton. Saïd, S. . ‘Herodotus and the “myth” of the Trojan War’, in E. Baragwanath, M. de Bakker (eds.), Myth, Truth and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford):  . Seaton, R. C. . Apollonius Rhodius: The Argonautica. Cambridge and London. Schiesaro, A. . ‘Aratus’ myth of Dike’, MD :  .

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Scholes, R., Kellogg, R. . The Nature of Narrative. Oxford. Scodel, R. . Listening to Homer: Tradition, Narrative, and Audience. Ann Arbor. Scullion, S. . ‘Herodotus and Greek religion’, in C. Dewald, J. Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge):  . Selden, D. . ‘Alibis’, Classsical Antiquity :  . Shipley, G. . The Greek World After Alexander,    . London and New York. Sistakou, E. . ‘Beyond the Argonautica: in search of Apollonius’ ktisis poems’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . . ‘“Snapshots of myth”: the notion of time in Hellenistic epyllion’, in J. Grethlein, A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and Interpretation: The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature (Berlin and New York):  . Skinner, J. . The Invention of Greek Ethnography. Oxford. Smart, J. . ‘Intertextual dynamics in Moschus’ Europa’, Arethusa :  . Smith, R. R. R. . Hellenistic Royal Portraits. Oxford. Stadter, P. . ‘Thucydides as “reader” of Herodotus’, in E. Foster, D. Lateiner (eds.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford):  . Stephens, S. A. . ‘Callimachus at court’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven):  . . ‘Writing epic in the Ptolemaic court’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Apollonius Rhodius (Leuven):  . . Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Berkeley. . ‘For you, Arsinoe . . .’, in B. Acosta Hughes, E. Kosmetatou, M. Baum bach (eds.), Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII ) (Cambridge):  . . ‘Battle of the books’, in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford):  . . ‘Ptolemaic epic’, in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, second edn. (Leiden):  . . ‘Remapping the Mediterranean: the Argo adventure in Apollonius and Callimachus’, in D. Obbink, R. Rutherford (eds.), Culture in Pieces: Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons (Oxford):  . Sternberg, M. . Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Bloomington. Stewart, A. . Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics. Berkeley. Stoneman, R. . The Greek Alexander Romance. London. Strasburger, H. . ‘Herodot als Geschichtsforscher’, in W. Schmitthenner, R. Zoepffel (eds.), Studien zur alten Geschichte, vol. . Hildesheim and New York. Strootman, R. . ‘Literature and the kings’, in J. J. Clauss, M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Oxford):  . Sullivan, S. D. . ‘How a person relates to θυμός in Homer’, IF :  .

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Swinton, T. C. W. . ‘Si credere dignum est’, PCPhS :  . Tarn, W. . ‘Two notes on Ptolemaic history’, JHS :  . Thalmann, W. G. . Apollonius of Rhodes and the Spaces of Hellenism. Oxford. Thomas, R. F. . ‘Virgil’s Georgics and the art of reference’, HSPh :  . . ‘Ideology, influence, and future studies in the Georgics’, Vergilius :  . . Virgil and the Augustan Reception. Cambridge. Thomas, R. . Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge. . Herodotus in Context. Cambridge. . ‘The intellectual milieu of Herodotus’, in C. Dewald, J. Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge):  . Tober, D. . ‘Greek local historiography and its audiences’, CQ :  . Toye, D. L. . ‘Dionysius of Halicarnassus on the first Greek historians’, AJPh :  . Tru¨dinger, K. . ‘Studien zur Geschichte der griechisch römischen Ethno graphie’. Dissertation, Basel. Tuplin, C. . Failings of Empire: A Reading of Xenophon Hellenica .. ... Stuttgart. Valverde Sánchez, M. . El aition en las Argonáuticas de Apolonio de Rodas. Murcia. Van Sickle, J. . ‘The book roll and some conventions of the poetic book’, Arethusa :  . Vasunia, P. . The Gift of the Nile. Berkeley. Vian, F. . ‘Notes critiques au chant I des Argonautiques’, REA :  . . Apollonios de Rhodes: Argonautiques, tome I, chants I II. Paris. . Apollonios de Rhodes: Argonautiques, tome II, chant III. Paris. . Apollonios de Rhodes: Argonautiques, tome III, chant IV. Paris. Walbank, F. . The Hellenistic World. London. . ‘Monarchies and monarchic ideas’, CAH VII.:  . Wecowksi, M. . ‘The hedgehog and the fox: form and meaning in the Prologue of Herodotus’, JHS :  . Wendel, C. . Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium vetera. Berlin. West, M. . ‘“Eumelos”: a Corinthian epic cycle?’, JHS :  . West, S. . ‘The papyri of Herodotus’, in D. Obbink, R. Rutherford (eds.), Culture in Pieces: Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons (Oxford):  . Whitmarsh, T. . ‘Prose fiction’, in J. J. Clauss, M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Oxford):  . Willcock, M. . ‘Mythological paradeigmata in the Iliad’, CQ :  . Williams, M. . Landscape in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Frankfurt. . ‘The character of Aeëtes in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius’, Hermes :  . Wright, B. G. . The Letter of Aristeas. Berlin. Zanker, G. . Realism in Alexandrian Poetry. London.

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. ‘The concept and use of genre marking in Hellenistic epic and fine art’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven):  . Ziegler, K. . Das hellenistische Epos, second edn. Leipzig. Zyroff, E. S. . ‘The author’s apostrophe in epic from Homer through Lucan’, unpublished dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.

Index of Subjects

Acastus,  acclamation, of Macedonian leaders, , ,  Achaemenes,  Achaïca, Rhianus’,  Achilles, , , , ,  Acusilaus, ,  Adrastus, ,  Adriatic sea, , , , ,  Aeaea, ,  Aegina, , ,  Aeneid, Virgil’s, , , ,  aetiology, , , , –, ,  Aetolica, Nicander’s,  Agamemnon, , , ,  Agamestor, –, – Agathocles,  Agias and Dercylus,  Aietes, , , , , –, , , , , , –, , , , –, –, ,  Alcinous, –, , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, – Alcock, S.,  Alexander I of Macedon, , –, ,  Alexander the Great, , , , , –, –, ,  Alexandria, , , , , , , , , ,  alternative versions, , –, ,  in Apollonius, – in Herodotus, – Alyattes, ,  Amasis, , , , , –, ,  Amazons, , , ,  amber, ,  Amestris,  Amycus, , , , , , , , 

Anabasis, Xenophon’s, , , –, , , , , –,  Anacharsis, , – Anacreon, ,  Anaphe, ,  Ancaeus, , ,  Antigonus Gonatas,  Antiochus III,  Aphetae, , – Aphrodite, , See Cypris Apis bull, ,  Apollo, , –, , , , , ,  Apsyrtus, , , , –, , –, , , , –,  Aratus, ,  Arcesilas IV of Cyrene, –,  Archelaus of Priene, ,  Ares, , , , ,  Arete, –, –,  Argo, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Argos, Argives (city), , , , ,  Argos, Argonaut,  Argos, son of Phrixus, , , –, , , , –, ,  Ariadne, , ,  Aristagoras of Miletus, , , –, ,  Aristophanes,  Aristotle, , ,  Arsinoe II, , ,  Artaynte,  Asheri, D.,  Asia Minor, , , –, , ,  Asper, M., – Astyages, , ,  Athamas,  Athena, , ,  Athens, , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , ,  Athos, Mt, , 





Index of Subjects

Atossa, , , , , ,  Atthidography,  audiences of local historiography,  Augeas, ,  Augustus,  Aulion,  authority, narrator’s, , , , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , , , ,  Babylon, , ,  Baragwanath, E., , , , – barbarians. See non-Greeks Barthes, R.,  Battos, ,  Becheirians,  beginnings, –, , , ,  Berenice II, ,  Berossus, – Boeotia, Boeotians, , –, , ,  Boreads, , ,  Borysthenes,  boundaries, crossing of, – burial customs, , , , , , ,  Byre, C.S., ,  Calaïs. See Boreads Callichorus,  Callimachus, –, , , , , , , , , , –,  Calliope, ,  Calliste. See Thera Calypso, ,  Cambyses, , , , , , –, , , –,  Cameron, A., ,  Candaules, , , , , , – Canobus, Apollonius’, ,  Catalogue of Argonauts, –, , , , , – Caunians, – Celts,  Chalybes, , , – Chatman, S.,  Cicero,  Cicones,  Circe, –, , , –,  Clare, R.,  Clauss, J.J., , –,  Clearchus, – Cleite, ,  Cleomenes, , , – Cleopatra, 

Clio, ,  Cnidus, ,  Cohn, D., –, , , –, ,  Colchis, Colchians, –, , , , , , –, , , , , –, , , , , –, , , , –, , , –, –, , –, ,  constitutional debate, Persian, , , –, , ,  Conte, G.B., – Corcyra. See Drepane Corinth, Corinthians, , , , ,  Corinthiaca, Eumelus’,  Coronus,  Croesus, , , , , , , , –, , –, , , , , , –, , –, , ,  Ctesias, ,  Cusset, C.,  Cuypers, M., , , ,  Cyclops, Cyclopes, , –, , ,  Cypris,  Cyprus, ,  Cyrene, , –, , , , –, , , –, , , , ,  Cyrus the Great, , , , , , , –, , –,  Cytissorus,  Cyzicus, , , , , , , , –, , ,  Danube. See Ister Darius, –, , , , , –, , , , –, , , –, , , , ,  Deioces,  Deiochus of Proconessus,  Delage, E., , ,  Delphi, , , , , ,  Demaratus, , , –,  Demeter,  Democedes,  Dewald, C., –, , , ,  Diodorus Siculus, , , ,  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, –, –,  discourse, ethnographic, , , –, , , ,  Doliones, , , ,  dreams, , , , , , , ,  Drepane, , , , , , ,  Dufner, C.M., , –, –, , , , , , , , , 

Index of Subjects Edmunds, L., ,  Egypt, Egyptians, –, –, , , , , , , , , , –, –, , , , , , –, –, –, –, –, , –, –, , –, – Elpenor,  Eridanus, river, , –, ,  ethnography, , , , –, , , , , –, , See also discourse, ethnographic etymology, , ,  Euboea, ,  Euergetes, – Eumelus,  Euphamos, Euphemus, –, , –, , –, , –, ,  Europa, Moschus’,  Europe, , , , , , , ,  Eurypylus,  example-model. See modello-esemplare exemplarity, exemplars, , , –, –, , , –, , , , , –, , , ,  expectations, readers’, , –, –, , , , –, , , ,  expedition, Panhellenic, , , , ,  Fantuzzi, M., , ,  Feeney, D., , ,  Fehling, D., –,  fiction, –, , , , , , ,  Fowler, R., –,  Fränkel, H., –, , ,  Genette, G.,  geography, , , , –, ,  gods, knowledge about, – Goldhill, S., , –,  Greece, , , , , , , , , , , , , See also Hellas Greekness, –, , – Gyges, , , , , , ,  Haemonia,  Halicarnassus, , ,  Halys, river, , , , –, , ,  Hamburger, K.,  Harpagus,  Hartog, F., , ,  Hecataeus, of Abdera, , –, , ,  Hecataeus, of Miletus, , , ,  Hecate, , ,  Heliades, – Hellas, , , , , , 



Hephaestus, , ,  Hera, , , –, , , ,  Heraclea Pontica, , ,  Heracles, –, , , , , , , –, , , , , , , – Heraclidae,  Herodorus, ,  Hesiod, , , , ,  Hinds, S., – historiē, ἱστορίη. See sources, historiographical approach to Hollmann, A.,  Homer. See Iliad, Homer’s; Odyssey, Homer’s; modello-codice, Homer as Homeric Hymns, , , ,  horizon of expectations, , –, –,  Horus,  Hunter, R.L., , , , , , , , , ,  Hylaea,  Hylas,  Hypsipyle, , –, , , –, ,  Ibycus,  Idas, –, , ,  ideology, Ptolemaic, , , , –, ,  Idmon, , , –, –, , , , , , , ,  Iliad, Homer’s, , , , , , , , , , –, ,  intertextuality, –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, ,  Iolcus,  Iphitus,  Iser, W.,  Issedones, , ,  Ister, river, , , , –, , ,  Ithaca,  Jacoby, F., , ,  Jason, –, , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , –, –, , , –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , –, –, , –, – Jauss, H.-R., ,  kings. See under individual kings. kingship ideology, Hellenistic, , –, , , , , –, , – Kowalzig, B., – ktisis-poetry, , , –, , 



Index of Subjects

Lateiner, D., , –, –, , , , ,  leadership, , , –,  Lemnos, Lemnians, –, , , , , , –, –, , –, , –, ,  Leonidas, ,  Leotychidas,  Letter of Aristeas, –,  Libya, Libyans, , –, , , –, , , –, , , –, – Livrea, E., ,  Lucan,  Lycus, , ,  Lydia, Lydians, , , , , , , , , , –, , , ,  Lynceus, , , ,  Lysimachus, ,  Lysistrata, Aristophanes’,  Macedon, Macedonians, , , , , , , –, , , , –, –, ,  Macrones,  Magi, –, ,  magic, –, , ,  Magnesia, , , ,  Manetho, ,  Mardonius, ,  Mariandynians,  Marincola, J., , , ,  Masistes, , ,  master of signs, Herodotean, –, , , , ,  Medea, –, , –, –, , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, –, ,  Medea, Euripides’, –, , –, , , , ,  Megabates,  Meleager, , ,  Meliboea,  Menelaus, , ,  Messeniaca, Rhianus’, ,  methodological statements, by Herodotean narrator, ,  Miletus, Milesians, , , ,  Miltiades, ,  Minos, , , ,  Mitrobates,  mode, historiographical, , , –, , , , , , , , , , –, , , 

modello-codice, –, , – Herodotus as, , –, – Homer as, , , , , , , –, ,  modello-esemplare, –, –, ,  Herodotus as, –, –, , –, –, – monarchy, , , –, , , See also under individual kings; kingship ideology, Hellenistic Mooney, G.W.,  Mopsus, , , ,  Mori, A., –, , , –, –, –, ,  Mossynoecians, –, , , , –,  motivation, of characters, , , –, , , –, , –, –, –, , ,  Murray, O., , ,  Muses, , –, , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , –, –,  Nagy, G., ,  Naucratis, ,  Nausicaa, ,  Nearchus, , – Nicander,  Nile, river, , , , , , ,  nomoi, –, , , –, , –, –, –, , , , , , , , ,  non-Greeks, –, , , –, –, –, , , , , –, , –, , , , , , –, , , –, –, , –,  North Africa, , , ,  Nymphis,  Nymphodorus, ,  obligation, historiographical, –,  Odysseus, , , , , , , –, , , –, , , , , ,  Odyssey, Homer’s, –, , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , ,  Oetaïca, Nicander’s,  oracles, , –,  Oreithyia,  Oroetes, , –,  Orpheus, , –, , , , , , , , , ,  Otanes, , –, , , , 

Index of Subjects Paphlagonians, , , – Pelasgians, , , , ,  Peleus, , ,  Pelias, , , , , –, –, , , , , , , – Persia, Persians, , –, , –, , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , , –, –, , , –, , , –, , , –, , , , –, ,  persona of Apollonius, – of Herodotus, , , , , –,  Phaeacia, Phaeacians, , –, , , , , , –, , , See also Drepane Phaenomena, Aratus’,  Phaethon,  pharaohs, pharaonic, , , , –,  Pherecydes,  Philadelphus, , , –, , –,  Philip II, of Macedon, , , ,  Philyres,  Phineus, , , , , –,  Phoebus, , , See also Apollo Phoenicians, , , , , ,  Phrixus, , , –, , , , ,  Phrygians, , , , ,  Pieria, ,  Pierides,  Pindar, , , , , , , –, , , –, –, , , –, ,  Poetics, Aristotle’s, ,  political readings, of the Argonautica, , –, , , , , , ,  Polybius,  Polycrates, , , , –, , –, –, – Polydeuces, ,  Polyphemus, Argonaut, ,  Polyxo, ,  Poseidon, , , ,  Posidippus, , –,  Priestley, J., –, , ,  prophecy, , , ,  Ptolemies. See also under individual Ptolemies; kingship ideology, Hellenistic Ptolemies, Ptolemaic kingdom, –, –, , , –, , , –, , –, , , , – Pythagoras,  Pythia, the, , ,  queens, Hellenistic, 



rationalising approaches to myth, , , ,  reader-response approaches, , –,  Rhea, , , , – Rhianus, , , , ,  Rhodes, –,  Salamis, battle of, , , ,  Salmacis inscription, ,  Samos, , , , –, ,  Sandanis,  Sauromatae,  Scythia, Scythians, , , , –, , –, –, –, –, , , –,  Sesostris, , , , , –,  signs, reading of, , , –, , –, , , , , , –, , ,  Sintians, , ,  Smerdis, , ,  sources historiographical approach to, , , , , –, –, –, –, , –, –, –, , –, , ,  of Apollonius, , –, , ,  Sparta, Spartans, , , –, , , , , –, –, , , , –, ,  spatium historicum,  Stephens, S., , , , , –, , , –, , , , ,  Sternberg, M.,  Talos,  Teiresias,  Telamon, , ,  Telemachus, ,  Thales, ,  Thalmann, W.G., ,  Thebaïca, Nicander’s,  themis, ethnographic, –,  Themistocles, ,  Theocritus, , –, – Thera, , , , –, , –, , , , ,  Theras, , , ,  Theriaca, Nicander’s,  Theseus, ,  Thessalica, Rhianus’,  Thessaly, , , –, , ,  Thetis,  Thoas, – Thomas, Richard, – Thomas, Rosalind, , 



Index of Subjects

Thrace, Thracians, , –, , –, , , , , , , , ,  Thucydides, , , –, –, –, , , , , , –, , ,  Tibarenians, , – Timaeus, – Tiphys, , , –, , ,  tripod, offered by Argonauts, , –,  Triton, , , , , , –, , ,  Tritonis, Lake, , , – Troy, Trojans, , , , ,  Tyrrhenians, , , 

Vian, F., ,  Virgil. See Aeneid, Virgil’s xenia, ,  Xenophon, , , –, , , , –, , , , –, –,  Xerxes, , , , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , , , ,  Zetes. See Boreads

Index of Passages

.– – .–  .  .– – .–  .–  .  .–  .  .–  .–  .  .– – .– – .  .–  .–  .–  . – .– – .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .  .–  .– – .–  .– – .–  .– – .  .–  .–  .–  .– –

Agias and Dercylus FGrH   Alexander Romance A... Kroll  γ.. von Lauenstein – Apollonius of Rhodes .– –, – . ,  .–  .– – .  .  .–  .  .–  .  .– – .  .– –,  .– ,  . ,  .–  .–  .–  . – . –,  .–  .– – .– ,  .–  .– – .– ,  .–  .–  .–  .–  .– – .–  . – .  .– 



 Apollonius of Rhodes (cont.) .–  .– – .– – .  .–  .– – .  .– , –,  .–  .– ,  .–  .–  .  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .  .– – .– – .–  .–  .  .– – .–  .  .–  .–  .– – .– ,  .–  .  .–  .  .  .–  .–  .  .–  .– ,  .–  .  .–  .–  .–  .– – .– – .–  .–  .– – .–  .–  .– 

Index of Passages .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .–  .– – .– ,  .– – .–  .–  .–  .– – .– ,  . –,  .  .  .– ,  .–  .– – .  .– – .–  .– –,  .–  .– –, – .– – .–  .–  .–  .–  .– – .–  .  .  .–  .–  .–  .–  .  .–  .– –,  .– – .– – .–  .  .–  .–  .–  .–  .– – . – .–  .– –

Index of Passages .–  .  .– – .  .– , – .–  .–  .– ,  .  .– – .  .– – .–  .–  .–  .– – . – .–  .–  .  .–  .  .–  .– ,  .–  .– – .–  .– – .– , – .–  .  .– –, – .–  CA frr. –  CA frr. –, –, – – CA fr.   CA fr.  ,  Aratus Phaenomena – – Aristotle Poetics .a–b – Poetics .a–b  Poetics .b– – Callimachus Aetia fr. a Harder , – Aetia fr. a Harder  Aetia fr.  Pf.  Aetia fr.  Harder  Catullus .  Cicero De Orat. .–  Leg. .  Ctesias FGrH  T 

Demosthenes .  Diodorus Siculus ..–.. – .. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus De Thuc. – Euripides Medea –  Medea   Hecataeus of Abdera FGrH  – Hecataeus of Miletus FGrH  Fa ,  Herodorus fr. A Fowler  fr. A Fowler – Herodotus .prol. , , ,  .– –, –, , – .–  .  . , , , , ,  . ,  .  .– –,  .  .  .  .  . , – .  .–  . – .– ,  .–  .  .  . ,  .  . – . – .  . –,  .  . ,  .  . ,  .  .  .  .– – .  . 



 Herodotus (cont.) .  .  .  . ,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . , ,  .–  .  .  .  .  . ,  . – .– ,  .  .  .  . ,  .  . – . ,  . ,  . , – . , – . ,  . ,  .– ,  .  .  .– – .  . –, – . ,  .  .  .–  .  .  . ,  .  . – . ,  .– – . –,  .  . ,  .– – .  . , 

Index of Passages .  .  .– – . – .–  .  .  .–  . –,  .–  .  .  .–  .  .–  . , – .  .  .  .– – .  .  .  .– – . – .– – .η  . – .– – .  .  .  .  .– – .  .–  .  .  . – .– – .– – .γ  .– – .  .–  .  . , ,  .– , – .  .  .  . – .  .  .  . 

Index of Passages .– – .– – .  . ,  .  .  .–  .–  .β  .– – .  .  .  .  . ,  .  .  Hesiod Works and Days – – Homer Iliad .  Iliad .–  Iliad .  Iliad .– –, ,  Iliad .–  Iliad . ,  Iliad .–  Iliad .–  Odyssey .  Odyssey . ,  Odyssey .  Odyssey .  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .– – Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .–  Odyssey .  Odyssey .– 

Letter of Aristeas – – –   [Longinus], de subl. .  Lucian Hist. Conscr. –

Ibycus PMGF   Isocrates Ad Nicoclem (Or. ) – Nicocles (Or. ) – 

Theocritus  , – Theodotus FGrH   Thucydides . –

Moschus Europa   Musonius Rufus On why a King should study philosophy – Nearchus FGrH  F – FGrH  Fa, b – FGrH  F – Nymphis of Heraclea FGrH   P. Amherst  ,  P. Oxy.   Philo FGrH   Pindar Isthmian .–  Olympian .– – Pythian  , – Pythian .–  Pythian .–  Pythian .  Pythian .–  Plutarch De Herodoti malignitate  Posidippus AB   AB   AB   Rhianus of Bene FGrH  – Salmacis Inscription SGO // – Sextus Empiricus M..–  Suda Ε  Adler  Η  Adler 



 Thucydides (cont.) .  .  . – . –,  .– – Timaeus BNJ  T  Virgil Aeneid . –

Index of Passages Aeneid .  Aeneid .– – Xenophon Anabasis ..– – Anabasis ..–  Anabasis ..– – Anabasis ..  Anabasis ..  Anabasis ..– – Anabasis .. 